


pieces solving a puzzle

by memorysdaughter



Category: Blindspot (TV)
Genre: Babies, Developing Relationship, F/F, Friendship, Jigsaw Puzzles, Pregnancy, Puzzles, Team as Family, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-10 14:03:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 29,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5588902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/memorysdaughter/pseuds/memorysdaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patterson likes puzzles. Jane is a puzzle. Together they might just be able to face what's coming next.  </p><p>Starts somewhere after 1x01 and includes events up to 1x09, but ignores 1x10.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

They do their first jigsaw puzzle in the hospital.

It's three in the morning on a Tuesday and Jane's been sitting in the ER for four hours with a bullet wound in her left arm. It's not too bad, mostly a fairly large graze, and it's mostly stopped bleeding, but the mere fact of it all, and the accompanying pain, is making her a little woozy. She has her head propped up in her hands and her elbows resting on the table in front of her.

She's wondering if the ER staff have completely forgotten about her when Patterson crosses the room and sits down across from her, putting a cardboard box on the table.

"A puzzle?" Jane asks, her voice raspy.

Patterson nods. "It's to keep my hands busy."

"You don't have to stay. Weller's here. And Mayfair. I think they're off threatening my security detail. You can go home."

"I know," Patterson says simply, and that one statement, coupled with the way she makes no moves to leave, makes Jane like her even more.

Her arm is going numb and she's too tired to move, but she watches as Patterson dumps the puzzle out of the box and begins sorting the pieces. The picture on the box shows a painting - girls in ballet costumes rehearsing in a studio - and by the time Jane turns her attention away from it, Patterson has found all four corners and is making a serious dent in all of the borders.

"Why do you like to do that?" Jane asks.

"Start with the borders? It anchors the whole puzzle, gives you a feel for the size of it all. Once there's a framework, you work inward until everything fits."

"I meant puzzles. Why do you like puzzles?"

"Oh." Patterson thinks about this. "There's only one answer, so they're all the same. But how you get to the answers is what makes them all different."

She continues snapping pieces together, anchoring the borders, and Jane closes her eyes.

"I like Degas, too," Patterson says. "He was the artist who painted this picture."

"Mm," Jane says, feeling like it's important to let Patterson know she's still listening.

"Do you have a favorite artist, Jane?" Patterson asks.

"I don't remember," Jane says. She seems to be saying that a lot lately.

"We'll have to take you to some museums, so you can figure it out."

Jane brings her fingers up to brush over the bird on her neck.

Patterson finishes the border, the puzzle now firmly anchored, and starts working her way inward.

When Jane finally gets stitches and some fairly nice painkillers, Patterson's still at the table in the ER, the puzzle missing only a handful of pieces.

"I saved them for you," Patterson says, and though Jane's groggy and untethered from the night, she likes that. She reaches over and slides the last remaining puzzle pieces into their places. Her fingers brush Patterson's curls and she realizes Patterson smells like apples.

Weller comes to take Jane back to the safe house, and Jane looks down at the puzzle. It's done now. "What happens to it?" she asks.

"We put it back in the box," Patterson says. "So tomorrow someone else can try it."

* * *

Patterson brings puzzles to their first girls' night, along with a bottle of wine.

"One of these cancels the other out," Zapata says, looking at the wine. "If I drink that, I won't have the coordination or the desire to do a puzzle. And if we start with a puzzle… I'll get bored and need to drink the wine."

"Seems like it works out for you either way," Patterson says with a shrug. "Jane?"

"I don't think I like wine."

"One way to find out," Zapata says, and she takes the wine from Patterson, twisting off the top.

Patterson digs out three tumblers, mismatched, and pours generous sloshes of wine into them. "I can do puzzles drunk," she proclaims.

Zapata greatly enjoys the wine, something she says aloud many times as the night progresses. She also _loves_ the pizza, the way the safe house is decorated, and the shoes Patterson's wearing.

Jane has two sips of the wine and it makes her think of decaying foliage. She much prefers watching Patterson assemble the puzzle. "You're starting with the border again."

Patterson takes a drink of her wine. "I always start with the border."

"Because it anchors the puzzle," Jane says, repeating Patterson's words from the hospital a few weeks before.

Patterson nods.

Jane eats another piece of pizza. Zapata lays down on the couch and starts to tell a story about a man she met on a stakeout who owns a horse farm in Kentucky.

Patterson only has eyes for the puzzle. She's like clockwork, hands moving in perfect synchronization. It's like she's done this before, hundreds of times before, yet Jane knows that can't be true, since Patterson cut open the puzzle box for the very first time shortly after arriving at the safe house.

Zapata drifts off - and spills wine on the carpet - but Jane stays at the kitchen table, entranced by Patterson.

"You glow," Jane says, her mouth moving without her consent.

That's what makes Patterson look up, her hands stilling on the puzzle pieces. "What?"

Jane goes hot. "I mean… your hair. In the light. And… the puzzle. Golden."

Patterson looks down at the puzzle, the picture a field of daffodils. Yellow and green, sun in the background, small golden retriever puppies frolicking amidst the flowers. "Oh," she says.

"I'll go… wake Zapata," Jane says, and she hurries out of the kitchen.

* * *

She's the one who brings the next puzzle to Patterson. It's brightly-colored butterflies spread out wing-to-wing on a white background, something she found at a bookstore around the corner from the safe house. Jane knows Patterson likes butterflies.

Actually, she isn't sure of much about Patterson, other than that everything the young woman does confuses and entrances her. Patterson smells like apples. Patterson likes puzzles.

And Patterson hasn't been to work in six days.

For the first few days Weller tells the team Patterson's still dealing with David's death, but after that Jane stops believing him. Patterson loves puzzles - she would want to be back in the office, working on deciphering the tattoos on Jane's body. Jane decides it's something else keeping Patterson away.

So she buys the puzzle. And she bothers one of Patterson's assistants until they give her the young woman's address.

At Patterson's door she realizes what a foolish mission this was. Her, the tattooed woman, the cargo found in a bag in Times Square, all questions with no answers, hunting down a blond dream with a penchant for codes and mysteries. Jane is sharp angles; Patterson is gentle curves.

They're too different. Their pieces don't fit together, would never fit snugly to be parts of a whole.

Jane sets the puzzle down outside the door.

She can't figure out what to do.

The door opens just as she's trying to figure out whether or not making a run for it is appropriate. Patterson stands there, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her eyes are puffy and red.

Sadness, Jane realizes.

"Jane," Patterson says, her voice low. "What… um… What are you doing here?"

Damn good question. Jane looks at her shoes. "You didn't come to work."

Patterson doesn't say anything.

"And I missed you. At work. I mean, because you're part of the team. And without you, we're missing some of the team. Of which you are a part." Jane wants to slap herself.

Still Patterson doesn't speak.

"Also I think you might be the closest thing I've had to a friend since I crawled out of that bag," Jane goes on, her voice quiet.

She finally looks up at Patterson, surprised to see tears in the blond woman's eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you cry."

Patterson shakes her head and pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders. "It's not you, Jane."

"Can I… can I do anything to help?"

"I don't think so," Patterson says, though her voice cracks.

"Please. Please just tell me what's wrong."

Patterson leans forward and wraps her arms around Jane. "I'm pregnant," she whispers.

* * *

Jane doesn't remember how to make tea. She knows she doesn't _like_ tea, but it tastes like yard clippings. How hard could it be to make?

She stands in Patterson's kitchen, fingers tapping the counter. She hears Patterson behind her. "Jane, what are you doing?"

"I'm making tea."

"Are you sure?" Patterson's voice sounds slightly amused, and she snuffles.

Jane turns around. "No. I'm not sure of anything."

She opens the fridge and sees a bottle of brown milk. _Chocolate_ , she remembers. She pulls it out and rummages around for two glasses. Carefully she pours it into the glasses and pushes one towards Patterson. "It's not tea, but it's a beverage."

"Is that important?"

"I've seen… on TV… that people comfort others with beverages," Jane offers.

Patterson laughs, and Jane thinks she'd do almost anything to keep Patterson from crying again. She takes a sip of her chocolate milk. "Is it… is it David's?"

Patterson takes a step forward and picks up the other cup of chocolate milk. She drinks and thoughtfully considers the question. "It has to be."

"And what are you going to do?" Jane asks.

Patterson puts the glass down. "I don't know."

She moves one hand down to her stomach.

"A puzzle you can't solve," Jane says softly.

"I never thought of it that way." Patterson shakes her head. "There are too many puzzles in the world, Jane. You, your tattoos… why David went out that night, what he was looking for, what I'm going to do with this baby…"

She sighs.

"We can make it one less," Jane says.

"What?"

Jane moves over to Patterson's kitchen table. She slides the puzzle out of the box and slits open the box with her fingernail. Just like she's seen Patterson do, Jane sets the top part of the box in the bottom so she can see the picture. Then Jane sits down and begins fishing the white border pieces out of the pile of pieces.

"The websites say that when the baby starts to move… it feels like butterflies." Patterson sits down next to Jane.

Jane doesn't take her eyes off the puzzle. "We'll solve this one together, okay?"

* * *

Patterson brings the next puzzle to Jane's safe house. Jane is curled up on the tile floor in the bathroom, her head throbbing, her stomach wrenched with nausea. She hasn't been able to keep anything down. Weller's bringing a doctor to the safe house; he left Patterson with her for conversation, and to keep Jane awake - the last time he let her fall asleep, she passed out, fell off the bed, and cracked her head open on the nightstand.

"Why didn't you get a flu shot?" Patterson asks. She holds the brightly-colored cube out to Jane. "It's a Rubik's Cube."

"I got a flu shot," Jane says, forcing her voice to remain steady. "I also got the flu."

"It could be something in your blood work we didn't catch," Patterson muses. She begins to spin the sections of the puzzle.

The cube's movements make Jane dizzy. She closes her eyes; she can still hear Patterson's fingers moving over the cube, _tick-tick-tick_. "Your first ultrasound was this week."

The cube goes quiet.

Jane takes the silence as a cue to open her eyes. She looks up at Patterson.

"It was," Patterson allows softly.

"I should have gone with you."

"That's not your responsibility."

"Someone should have gone."

A spasm of nausea wracks Jane's body, and she gags as she leans over the toilet. Nothing comes up, and she sinks back down to to the tile. "Next time," she pants to Patterson. "Next time, I'll go with you."

"Okay," Patterson says, and when Jane closes her eyes, she feels Patterson begin to stroke her hair. "You know, this is what morning sickness is like."

"This has been all day sickness."

"Exactly."

* * *

Patterson finds Jane in the conference room, photos of the tattoos spread out over the table. She puts a box on top of the bird tattoo's photo.

"A new puzzle?" Jane asks.

"Yes. For later." Patterson seems breathless. "I need your help with something."

"Anything," Jane says, and means it.

"We need to tell them."

Jane's so focused on the word _we_ that she nearly misses the end of the sentence. "Tell them what?"

Patterson indicates her stomach. She's nearly twenty weeks pregnant, and Jane has no idea how the rest of the team hasn't noticed. Patterson's usual wardrobe thus far has been accented with loose, flowy blouses, and her minimal heels have been replaced by flats. The workday is frequently interrupted with Patterson's visits to the bathroom, and more than once Jane has found Patterson sobbing in her office.

"Oh. Okay," Jane says.

"I mean, if you're not busy."

"I'm not busy." Jane sweeps the photos back into the file. "I'm never too busy for you."

The team is gathered in Mayfair's office. Jane opens the door; Patterson looks like she's reconsidering.

"We'll do it together," Jane says quietly. She slips her hand into Patterson's, gives it a squeeze. She likes the way her tattooed hand and wrist looks intertwined with Patterson's, and for the first time they look like fitted puzzle pieces. They exist now inside the formal borders of a picture, giving their world weight and anchor.

Patterson clears her throat and Weller, Reade, and Zapata turn towards her. Mayfair raises her head. "What can I do for you, Agent Patterson?"

"I have something to share," Patterson says.

"About the case?" Reade asks.

Patterson shakes her head. "It's… uh… it's about David."

"About David's case?" Weller frowns at Jane.

Patterson shakes her head again, and Jane sees her eyes filling with tears. She squeezes Patterson's hand.

"Something David left me," Patterson whispers, and she pulls the hem of her blouse taut against the swell of her belly.

"Oh," Mayfair says faintly.

Weller jerks upright from his chair and crosses the room to them.

"Don't hit her!" Jane says fiercely, and she steps in front of Patterson. Through their hand-to-hand connection she can feel Patterson tense, and she hears the blond's breathing pick up.

Weller looks at Jane, confused. "Why would I… why would I hit her?"

Jane freezes. She looks over at Mayfair, then down to Reade and Zapata.

"Jane," Mayfair says gently, "are you remembering something?"

_A woman. A woman she doesn't know. Swell of a belly. Screaming. Slapping, echoing loudly down a hallway. Herself, watching from afar, younger, yelling out NO!_

"Jane," Weller says, his voice stern. "Jane, can you focus on me?"

"Puzzles can't always be solved," Jane says, and she bolts from the room, nausea forcing acid up her throat.

* * *

Jane's entire body is shaking; she's a box of puzzle pieces being jumbled around in a hailstorm. She stumbles back into the conference room and her jerking motions cause all of the tattoo pictures and Patterson's puzzle to tumble to the floor. She curses and bends down for them.

In the dark, cool space under the table, surrounded by a hail of puzzle pieces and images of her own skin, she finds she's gasping for breath, tears streaming down her face. Her body won't relax enough for her to get more air in; she presses her forehead to the carpet and sobs.

"Jane." It's Weller. "Come on out here."

Jane closes her eyes.

Another voice joins Weller's - Patterson. "Jane, please."

"Go away," Jane says loudly. "I'm not… I'm not good. I'm not safe."

A small hand covers Jane's own. "Listen to me," Patterson says softly.

Jane raises her head and opens her eyes; through her tears she sees Patterson kneeling in front of her. "You shouldn't sit like that," Jane says. "It might…"

"I've been doing prenatal yoga," Patterson says. "I think I'm fine."

She squeezes Jane's hand. "And _you're_ fine. You're not dangerous. You're a good person, Jane. You care about others - people you don't know. And people you _do_ know."

"But I know… I know things, I have these clues, and no one knows what they're from and… they never lead us anywhere good. It's always danger, and it hurts everyone around me."

Patterson shakes her head, and she brings Jane's hand up and to her stomach. Jane's hand is sandwiched between Patterson's own and Patterson's warm belly, and Jane barely registers that before she feels a gentle nudge against her palm.

"Not everyone," Patterson says softly. "Not everyone."

* * *

"I was looking at the checkerboard pattern behind your left knee when I realized it wasn't a true checkerboard. The squares aren't equally divided between black and white, and the patterns aren't even," Patterson says. She approaches the monitor with her hand supporting her lower back. At thirty-two weeks her usually-brisk walk has become a sway-backed waddle. "I wondered if it might be…"

She pauses, and rubs her back.

"Are you all right?" Jane asks. She and Patterson have been spending a lot of time together. Patterson claims that since her brain is flooded with pregnancy hormones, she can't stop solving puzzles. Jane knows it's true - Patterson calls her at all hours of day and night, telling her about jigsaw puzzles or cryptics or even Jane's own tattoos. The safe house kitchen walls are covered in tattoo photos; the safe house kitchen table is a slew of jigsaw pieces and Rubik's Cubes.

"I just…" Patterson winces and shrugs off whatever it is. "I wondered if…"

She stops again and shifts on her feet. "Unhh."

"Patterson?" Jane touches her elbow.

Patterson lets out a low moan and hunches in on her rounded abdomen.

Jane grabs a chair and forces Patterson into it, then sticks her head out into the hallway. Reade, Weller, and Zapata are out of the office for security reviews at the NSA, and Mayfair said she had an all-day meeting with other intelligence agency leaders, so she doesn't see anyone she knows. But Patterson needs help. Jane whips her head from side to side. "Hey!" she yells at the first person she sees, a man with salt-and-pepper hair and a goatee.

He crosses the corridor, a nervous look on his face as he approaches the tattooed woman with the wild expression on her face. "Can I help you?"

"Patterson. Patterson needs help," Jane says. Her throat feels paralyzed, like she can't make herself clear. "Please."

The man looks over Jane's shoulder to where Patterson is sitting on the desk chair, her teeth gritted. "Agent Patterson?"

"Agent… Castillo," Patterson pants. "Call medical."

Jane's heart sinks. She sees dark red soaking through Patterson's sweater and skirt, and though she doesn't know anything about pregnancy except what she's read in the books Patterson loaned her, she knows it can't mean anything good.

Agent Castillo calls an ambulance. Jane squeezes Patterson's hand while they wait. Patterson looks up at Jane, tears in her eyes. "Not like this," she whispers. "David shouldn't have died the way he did, and I don't want… I don't want to die like this."

"You're not going to die."

"Oh, Jane," Patterson says, her voice gentle. "I thought you were a better liar. Super secret spy and all that."

* * *

Patterson doesn't let go of Jane's hand all the way to the hospital, and Jane only lets go when she's forced to, by a kind-faced nurse who shows her back to the same waiting room where Jane and Patterson did their first jigsaw puzzle together.

When Weller finds her, Jane has no idea how much time has passed, but there's a stack of puzzles on the far side of the table she's completed, and she's got jigsaw pieces in her hands.

Weller brings Jane's chin up gently and notes the tears streaming down her cheeks. "Hey," he says.

"I'm sorry," Jane whispers, but she doesn't know why.

"That you tore through these puzzles?" Weller asks. "I don't think you have to apologize for that."

"For Patterson."

"Patterson's going to be fine," Weller says.

"What?"

Weller kneels down next to her. "Patterson's fine."

"But the blood…"

"She had a cyst that ruptured," Weller says. "From stress. She's going to have to stay on bed rest for the rest of her pregnancy, but… she's fine. Baby's fine."

Jane flings her arms around Weller. He rocks her back and forth. "They're fine, Jane," he murmurs.

"Fine," Jane repeats; her whisper sounds like a prayer.

"And what's even better, you'll have a lot of time to do puzzles," Weller says. "I didn't know you _liked_ puzzles."

"I didn't," Jane tells him. "Not until…"

 _Until Patterson_. She can't finish the sentence, but Weller seems to understand all the same.

* * *

"I thought we were going to do puzzles," Jane says. She cuts her sandwich into fourths, the way Patterson likes it. Jane doesn't know how she likes her own sandwiches. She's realizing there's so much she doesn't know about herself, but she tries to capitalize on the few things she _does_ know. And she know she likes Patterson. So if Patterson eats her sandwiches in quarters, that's good enough for Jane.

"We did three just this morning," Patterson replies. Her feet are up on the sofa, and she has a mug of tea balanced on her belly. "And more than twenty over the past seven weeks. The baby's demanding a break. We can still do puzzles, though. This is 'Wheel of Fortune.'"

Jane sits down on the floor next to the couch, crossing her legs. On the screen a game show host is talking, introducing contestants. "I've never seen this before."

"You say that about a lot of things."

"It's true about a lot of things."

Patterson grins and shifts her position, rubbing her swollen abdomen absentmindedly. "The contestants spin a wheel for a chance to guess letters to fill in a puzzle."

"Why do they need the wheel?"

"You know, I don't think anyone's ever asked that before."

Jane eats her sandwich. Patterson's always trying to get her to try new things, even if they're just simple things like sandwich fillings. So far Jane has discovered she likes grape jelly but not strawberry, raspberry but not orange marmalade, and she can't quite figure out her feelings on apricot, peach, and blackberry. She keeps her eyes on the TV while she chews, trying to decide whether or not she likes blackberry jam.

"I'm scared, you know," Patterson says.

Jane swallows. "Of the baby?"

"Not _of_ the baby," Patterson replies, a smile in her voice. "Of what happens _after_ the baby gets here."

"You bring it home," Jane says. One of the contestants guesses "B" and Jane shakes her head.

Patterson laughs, and she runs her fingers through Jane's hair. "And then we're alone, together, forever."

"Not alone," Jane says. "L."

The contestant guesses "C" and is wrong.

"No, I guess not," Patterson says. "Not when I have you."

"And Weller, and Zapata, and Reade. And maybe even Mayfair, although I heard Weller say he could never imagine Mayfair as a baby. You can count on us."

Patterson doesn't respond, but her fingers keep moving through Jane's hair.

"We're your border," Jane says.

"My what?"

"Your border. We anchor you. Then we can work inward until everything fits."

Patterson laughs. Jane turns towards her and sees tears in the young woman's eyes.

"Nobody ever listened to me like you do, Jane," Patterson says.

"Then you're my border, too," Jane decides.

She squeezes Patterson's hand. "Whatever happens, you were the first one to solve me."

* * *

Patterson gets antsy throughout the afternoon and spends a lot of time sitting in the baby's room. Jane makes macaroni and cheese for dinner and finishes their puzzle from the morning; Patterson falls asleep on her bed after "Jeopardy." Jane sits on the bed next to her. She's supposed to be looking at a case file for Weller, but it's unopened on her lap.

Jane twists her fingers in the hem of her shirt. Next to her Patterson seems so fragile, like spun glass, but Jane knows differently. Patterson is one of the strongest people Jane knows, and although that pool of people isn't very big, that doesn't matter to Jane.

Gently Jane moves her hand over Patterson's swollen abdomen. In the last seven weeks they've spent so much time together that Jane no longer feels strange performing this action. It feels familiar now, the warmth and curve representing something Jane doesn't have the correct words to explain. Patterson's safe. Patterson's like home - a concept Jane doesn't have the right words for, either, but one she's figuring out more and more.

Patterson grunts in her sleep, and Jane feels the baby shift and roll under her palm. Then Jane feels something new - Patterson's abdomen muscles tighten. It's an extremely firm, fierce tensing, and it lasts for twenty seconds before it fades away.

Jane waits, but she doesn't feel that again.

"Jane," Patterson murmurs.

Jane jumps. "I didn't do anything."

"I know," Patterson says amusedly, her eyes still closed. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"Oh."

"But I need you to get my suitcase."

 _There_. The tightening happens again.

Something snaps together in Jane's brain and she looks at Patterson. "This is it, isn't it?"

Patterson opens her eyes. She looks tired, but there's a spark of excitement in her expression. "This is it, Jane," she agrees. "I'm pretty sure this is it."

Jane starts to get up, but Patterson wraps her fingers around Jane's wrist. "Stay with me this time, okay? The _whole_ time, okay?"

"I've never been at a birth before," Jane says honestly.

Patterson grins. "I would be impressed by that, but yesterday you told me you'd never been to a Dairy Queen before."

* * *

Her name is Moira Jane Patterson, and she's beautiful. She has reddish-blond hair and blue eyes, and Jane can't take her eyes off her sweet face.

But she doesn't want to hold her. "No," she says.

"Jane," Weller says. "It's okay. We all held her."

 _But I'm not like you_. Jane shakes her head. She _wants_ to hold the baby, but there's something about Jane, something rigid and yet broken, something she doesn't want to infect the baby. "No," she repeats in a whisper.

Weller takes a few steps towards Jane, the baby in his arms. She forces herself to stand still.

"She doesn't know anything about the world yet," Weller says.

"I shouldn't be the one to teach her. I've done..."

Weller takes another step forward. "That means she doesn't know what you've done, and it means she won't care. All she needs is love."

"And food, and shelter, and sleep," Jane says idiotically. Her eyes are locked on the baby's face. "She's so…"

"She's pure love," Weller says, and he carefully slides the baby into Jane's arms.

She's light but somehow solid. Her fingers are long and tapered, her fingernails like tiny pearls. Her breathing is so even and gentle.

"I've never held a baby before," Jane whispers.

"Put it on the list," Weller says with a smile.

She holds the baby in the nursery for two hours. It's like a religious experience. There's nothing like it. Something about the baby is mesmerizing - every soft curve and gentle movement is hypnotic and new.

"Um, Weller says you might not be able to understand me yet," Jane says awkwardly. "But Patterson says that doesn't matter, that we should talk to you like you understand everything."

The baby lets out a soft hum.

"My name is Jane. It's not my real name. Although it seems more and more like my real name the longer I'm here. I don't know what my name is, I don't know where I came from, I don't know why I'm here, I don't know what I'm supposed to do here. So I guess we're not that different."

"Surprisingly deep thoughts, with Jane Doe." Patterson's voice sounds amused.

Jane turns. Patterson stands in the doorway, leaning on her IV pole.

"It's good to see you," Jane says honestly.

"Good to see me when I'm not writhing in pain and cursing?"

"I like seeing different sides of people," Jane says honestly. "And… um… thank you. Thank you for her middle name."

Patterson approaches them slowly. "Her name's a puzzle, sort of."

She moves her fingers over the baby's fuzzy hair. "Moira is a Scottish derivative of Mary. My family is Scottish. Mary means 'beloved,' a meaning shared by the name David."

Tears glimmer in her eyes, but she continues. "And your name, Jane, means 'God is gracious.'"

"I don't think I believe in God."

"I don't," Patterson says. "But I believe that in the universe, with all its puzzles and mysteries and unexplained corners, sometimes all we can do is start at the center and work out."

"We don't do that," Jane says.

"Not with jigsaw puzzles." Patterson sits down on the chair next to Jane's. "But our team… before you came along, we were on the edges looking for a center. And now… you're our center."

"I don't think that's true," Jane says, gently handing the baby to Patterson. "She's our center now."

"So we're her framework."

Jane nods. Patterson smiles.

In her arms, the baby sighs contentedly.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This originally started out as the sequel to "pieces solving a puzzle" but I realized it's all in the same vein so it should stay together.
> 
> Super-pumped for "Blindspot" to come back from hiatus!

“Jane.” Weller sticks his head into the conference room. “Do you have a minute?”

 

Since she doesn’t have a desk or an office of her own, Jane’s taken to setting up shop in the conference room at the farthest end of the hall.  It’s quiet, and before she showed up no one ever used it.  She spreads all of her work out over one end of the table; the other’s reserved for whatever jigsaw puzzle she and Patterson are working on.

 

He’s noticed Patterson spends a lot of time in there, too - hence the toys and other baby gear.  And while Weller can’t quite figure out what Patterson and Jane are to each other, he likes that their relationship has grown so complex.  He likes knowing Jane’s developing connections with others.

 

She looks up. “Yeah.  Sure.”

 

Weller sits down across from her, noticing dark circles under Jane’s eyes. “Are you okay?”

 

“Yeah,” Jane answers shortly.

 

Sensing he wouldn’t get much more out of her, Weller clears his throat. “Uh, well, our work on the tattoos has been our main focus for awhile, but I’ve been called out to LA to consult on another case.”

 

Jane doesn’t react.

 

“Los Angeles,” Weller clarifies. “I won’t be gone more than a week or two.”

 

She frowns at him. “Why are you telling me this?”

 

That throws him. “Because we’re a team.  We’re on a team together.  We have to communicate with each other.”

 

“You’re going to work somewhere else.”

 

“Just for a few weeks.”

 

“Fine.”

 

She still won’t meet his eyes and Weller’s getting anxious.  Jane’s never like this.

 

_How do you know?_ that annoying voice in his head queries.   _You don’t know her.  No one knows her._

 

“Okay,” Weller says. “Patterson and Reade will still be around.”

 

Jane doesn’t say anything; she keeps her eyes on whatever work is on the table before her.

 

Weller stands and turns to go.

 

“Weller,” Jane says softly, so softly he almost misses it.

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Can I… can I ask your opinion on something?”

 

Weller’s tempted to snap at Jane, to ask her where all this attention was when he was talking to her, but he feels terrible as he realizes her preoccupation with whatever this is might be skewing her ability to focus. “Of course.”

 

Jane’s eyes remain on the table. “Dr. Borden… he wants me to… he gave me medication.”

 

This is huge.  Weller sits down.

 

She pushes a sheaf of papers over towards him.

 

“Medication for what, Jane?” Weller asks, flipping through the pages.  He only understands bits of it.

 

“I can’t remember.”

 

He looks up as she pushes her hands against her eyes, and wonders how she managed to get so downtrodden and disconnected without him realizing it. “It says he’s considering two.  One for anxiety, and one for sleep.”

 

Jane shakes her head.

 

“Jane, do you think you need these?”

 

She mutters something, and for the first time Weller realizes she’s shaking.  Jittery.  Making a strange noise with her mouth. “Hey, Jane,” he says, his voice sharper. “Look at me.”

 

Jane meets his eyes but she’s not behind her own gaze.

 

“What day is it, Jane?”

 

She blinks. “Monday.”

 

It’s Thursday.  Weller can’t speak.

 

Her hands skitter on the table like nervous animals. “I feel wrong.”

 

Weller shoves the paperwork away and rounds the table to her.  As he draws closer he sees scabs on her lips; her hair is matted with sweat.  She reaches up for him, her hands shaking.  Her breathing is quick and she seems like a terrified animal trapped in a corner. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

 

“Okay,” Weller says gently. “Okay, we’ll figure it out.”

 

He helps her to her feet, putting her arm around his neck, and he tries to lead her into the hallway.  She seems like dead weight slogging alongside him. “Please, make them stop,” Jane whimpers.

 

“We will,” Weller promises, although he has no idea what she’s talking about.

 

In the hallway he flags down Zapata, who’s going along on the trip to LA. “We need help,” he says.

 

“We’re supposed to leave for LA in twenty minutes!” Zapata says, obviously about to yell at him for being unprepared.  Then she catches sight of Jane. “I’ll get Patterson.”

 

“I’ll get her down to medical,” Weller says firmly. “Go get Borden.”

 

“Borden?” Zapata’s eyes go wide. “I’m on it.”

 

Jane manages to stay upright until Weller gets her on the bed in medical.  Patterson runs in behind him. “Jane?” she asks.

 

He nods briskly, still not accustomed to seeing Patterson wearing a tiny infant in a sling around her body.  Moira has to be the world’s calmest baby, since half the time Weller forgets there’s even an infant in there.

 

“Jane, it’s Patterson,” the blond says loudly. “Can you focus on me?”

 

She holds one hand up in front of Jane’s eyes and begins moving her pointer finger back and forth. “Aren’t you supposed to be leaving for LA?”

 

“Yeah,” Weller says.

 

“So, go,” Patterson says.

 

“What?  No, I’m not leaving her like this.”

 

“Weller.  You know they’re not going to wait for you,” Patterson says.

 

“Borden started giving her medication,” Weller says.

 

Patterson takes this in. “Why didn’t we know about this?”

 

“You didn’t know?”

 

“No, did you?”

 

Weller shakes his head. “He didn’t discuss it with you?”

 

“No.  And she practically lives with me, and I didn’t even notice,” Patterson says, and she curses. “Jane, can you talk to me?”

 

“I feel wrong,” Jane says.

 

“Wrong where?” Patterson asks.

 

Jane hesitates.  Her eyes are locked on something above Weller’s head, her pupils huge. “In my stomach.  It feels like… twisting.  Like the twisting is coming up.”

 

She gags and Weller lunges for the garbage can, holding it up in front of her.  Jane vomits and looks up at him sadly. “Nauseous.  That’s the word.”

 

Jane turns to Patterson. “I want to go home.”

 

“Let Dr. Borden come and take a look at you,” Patterson says gently.

 

“I want to go home _now_ ,” Jane says firmly, and she tries to get up. “I can’t be here anymore.”

 

“Jane, relax,” Weller says. “You can go home soon.”

 

She grabs onto his arm. “I want to go home.”

 

“I know,” Weller says, his heart breaking. “Just… sit here with me for a little while, okay?”

 

“I don’t have a home,” Jane whispers.

 

Weller wraps his arms around her and holds her close.  She’s still shaking, and her pulse feels like a hummingbird’s heart. “You have a home, Jane.”

 

Dr. Borden enters the room. “Agent Weller.  Agent Patterson.  Jane,” the doctor greets them.

 

“You put her on pills?” Weller demands.

 

“Kurt,” Patterson says softly, shifting the baby.

 

“She has been experiencing difficulty with sleeping and in concentrating,” Borden says. “These complaints were pressing enough for me to believe she would be sufficiently unable to function adequately.  She agreed to try a low dose of an anti-anxiety medication that would also aid in sleep.”

 

The door opens and Mayfair enters. “Weller, get out of here.  Get on the plane, go to LA with Zapata.  They’re waiting for you.  I can take over from here.”

 

“No, no, _no_ ,” Jane mumbles, gripping Weller’s arm.

 

“Jane, it’s okay,” Weller says. “We talked about this earlier.”

 

Jane squeezes her eyes shut.

 

“Jane,” Patterson says, “it’s going to be all right.”

 

“Go,” Mayfair repeats.

 

“I feel _wrong!”_ Jane screams at the room.

 

The baby starts to cry.

 

“Oh, Mo, I’m so sorry,” Jane sobs.  She looks over at Patterson. “Please don’t take her away.”

 

“I won’t,” Patterson says.  She scoops the baby up out of the sling. “I’ll go feed her.  We’ll come right back.”

 

Borden grabs a stool from the side of the room and sits down, moving towards Jane. “Jane, do you know what day it is?”

 

Weller hears her say “Monday” before he follows Patterson out into the hallway.

 

“What’s happening to her?” he asks.

 

Patterson looks over at him as she sets Moira on her shoulder. “She’s probably having a reaction from the meds.  Not everyone’s brain reacts the same way to psychiatric drugs.”

 

“This isn’t because of…?” Weller trails off, unable to figure out how to finish his question.

 

“Of her tattoos?  Or her memory loss?  Or anything else we’ve done recently?  No, probably not,” Patterson says.

 

“What if she’s remembering things?”

 

Patterson pats Moira on the back.  The baby gurgles contentedly. “I don’t think that’s what’s happening, Kurt.”

 

Weller looks down at his shoes.

 

“We’ll keep you updated,” Patterson says.

 

“Okay.  Okay, yeah.” He squeezes Patterson’s upper arm, and kisses Moira on her head. “I’ll be back.”

 

“We know,” Patterson replies.

 

* * *

 

Patterson’s barely finished nursing Moira when Mayfair comes to find her.  The baby is milk-drunk against Patterson’s chest, breathing softly, one fat hand clinging to Patterson’s white coat.

 

“What is it?” Patterson asks quietly.  Mayfair looks even more worried.

 

“We need you,” Mayfair replies in a tone that leaves no room for argument.

 

When they make it through the doors to medical Mayfair somehow gets the baby out of Patterson’s arms.  Patterson doesn’t even notice; her attention is drawn almost immediately to Jane, who is on the floor under the table in the corner.  The tattooed woman’s breathing is rapid and terrified.

 

“What happened?” Patterson asks Borden.

 

“I was trying to ask her some questions about what she did on Wednesday and Thursday,” Borden answers. “She is unable to recall any events of the previous forty-eight hours and still believes it to be Monday.  During the course of our questioning she became upset.”

 

Patterson bends down. “Jane,” she says gently, “take a deep breath.”

 

“I am wrong,” Jane sobs.

 

“I know.  We’re trying to help you, but we need you to calm down first.”

 

Jane reaches out and clamps onto Patterson’s arm. “Please… can we go home?  Please?”

 

“Yes.  We can go home.  But first you have to be calm,” Patterson says.

 

Jane closes her eyes, tears rolling down her cheeks.  Patterson brings Jane’s other hand up and puts it on her chest. “Breathe,” she murmurs to Jane.

 

Something about Patterson’s heartbeat calms Jane, and after fifteen minutes or so she opens her eyes. “I’m ready now.”

 

Patterson nods. “Okay.  I’ll get my things.”

 

“And Mo,” Jane reminds her, as if Patterson could ever forget her own daughter.

 

“And Mo.”

 

Borden follows Patterson out into the corridor.

 

She turns on him. “What the hell were you thinking, giving her drugs?”

 

He puts his hands up in a peacekeeping gesture. “I was merely trying to ameliorate the symptoms she was reporting.”

 

“We don’t know anything about how her blood chemistry was affected by the ZIP,” Patterson barks. “There are _no_ studies on how psychoactive drugs interact with ZIP, and you know that!”

 

“Jane is my patient, and I was doing my best to keep her mental functioning at its highest level,” Borden protests.

 

“This should have been something the team talked about,” Patterson says. “Instead you and Jane do it in secret -”

 

“She is an adult,” Borden says hotly. “It was her own decision!”

 

“- and leave the rest of us to pick up the pieces!”

 

“If you’re so involved with her, maybe you should have noticed something.”

 

It’s a low blow and Borden knows it.  He takes a step back from Patterson.

 

She takes two forward. “I’m sorry, Dr. Borden, but in the past year or so not only have I been lead forensic agent on Jane’s case but I’ve also dealt with the senseless murder of my boyfriend, finding out I was carrying his child, and giving birth to and taking care of said child.  So, yes, Jane is an _extremely_ important part of my life, but she is not the entirety of it.  Despite all of that, I _still_ would have discussed any plans for her case with the team.  It’s why we’re a team.”

 

Borden seems to shrink.

 

“Don’t give her anything else,” Patterson says firmly. “And in the morning, you bet your ass we’re getting someone else in here to evaluate her.”

 

Borden has no response to that, and Patterson doesn’t give him any time to think of one.  She turns and stalks off to find her baby and her Jane; she’s going to take them home and try to figure things out.

 

* * *

 

Up until now, Patterson’s had mixed feelings about Jane’s security detail.  They seem like a series of cut-outs from a high-end men’s clothing catalog - total FBI models, complete with trench coats and wing-tip shoes.  She made an effort to learn their names when she first started spending so much time with Jane, and now she’s grateful that she can thank Armando, Francis, and Clark by name, because thanking them is only going to be the beginning of making up for their duties this evening.

 

Patterson knows, deep down, that Jane would never hurt Moira.  That despite the fact that Jane is a certified super-spy/master assassin/something out of an action movie, she’s gentle, sweet, and funny as well.  But the combination of Jane and psychoactive drugs makes Patterson worried, just a little, for the very first time.

 

It’s a sentiment of strange that only grows when the little things start breaking Jane down.  The radio in the car causes her to start hyperventilating again, and then Jane’s banging her head against the window and screaming.  Clark deftly slides between Jane and the window, wrapping the woman’s arms around her body and pinning them in place. “Easy now, ma’am,” he says in his dulcet baritone.

 

“I’m so sorry,” Jane whimpers. “My head… things are wrong in my head.”

 

“It’s all right, ma’am,” Clark responds.  He holds her like that until they’re back at Patterson’s apartment.

 

All three of the security personnel accompany them upstairs, which isn’t unusual.  Armando usually volunteers to carry the baby carrier or one of Patterson’s bags, but tonight their eyes are on Jane, which is just fine with Patterson.  She has Moira in the sling, anyway.

 

At the door Jane starts to rock back and forth, moaning and pressing her hands against her head.  Patterson fishes for the keys in her pocket as Jane’s moans get louder.

  
“It’s wrong,” she says to Patterson, her voice anguished.

 

“Okay,” Patterson says. “We’ll… we’ll figure it out, I promise.”

 

Once inside she takes Moira to the nursery and gently slides the baby into her crib, flicks on the monitor, and closes the door behind her.  In the kitchen Armando and Francis are holding Jane by the elbows near the sink, and Clark is crouched down on the floor.

 

“She just started vomiting, ma’am,” Armando says to Patterson.

 

Patterson yanks her hair back into a ponytail and approaches Jane. “Jane?  You with me?”

 

Jane’s swaying on her feet, pale and distant.  She follows Patterson’s finger with her eyes, but her pulse is weak and far too fast.

 

“Did you guys see her the past two days?” Patterson asks, keeping her eyes on Jane.

 

“Yes, ma’am,” Clark replies. “Day shift picked her up both days at her other place of residence, accompanied her to the building, and we brought her back to the safe house on Tuesday and here on Wednesday night.”

 

“Who was on day shift?”

 

“Chin, Tony, and Mack,” Armando says. “Why?  Something happen to her?”

 

“Will you check with them and see if they noticed anything out of the ordinary?”

 

“Of course,” Francis says. “You need anything else?”

 

Patterson can’t think of anything. “No.  I think we’ll just try to get some sleep.”

 

“We’ll have Clark stay in the lobby for tonight,” Francis says. “Let us know if you need anything.”

 

“I will,” Patterson says. “Thanks, guys.”

 

Patterson guides Jane into the bedroom and lays her down.  She slips into bed beside her, and simply watches.

 

Jane’s hands fidget restlessly against each other, fingers locking and unlocking in a spastic non-rhythm.  Her facial muscles tic and her breathing whistles in and out past her scabby lips.  Her entire body seems to be seized by sudden shakes.  Jane looks exhausted, and Patterson can’t blame her.

 

“If I sleep,” Jane says suddenly, her voice seeming far too loud, “will this stop?”

 

“I don’t know,” Patterson answers, thinking _God, I hope so._

 

“Will you…” Jane pauses, her eyes moving around the room as though tracking something only she can see. “Will you… if I sleep… will you stay?”

 

Patterson nods. “Of course I will.”

 

“You won’t leave?” Jane’s eyes continue to scan the room, but she reaches out for Patterson.

 

Patterson links their hands together. “I will never leave you.  I promise.”

  
She’s not sure if it was the right thing to say, but eventually Jane’s breathing slows and her eyes droop closed.  Patterson pulls a blanket over Jane and grabs case files from her work bag.  Something’s telling her this is going to be a long night.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a little shorter than the other two, but it's a scene that came up to me and demanded to be written, and it sets up some important parts going forward.
> 
> I love comments and I'm always grateful for any feedback you send.
> 
> Enjoy!

It’s a very long night.  In between nursing Moira and rocking her back to sleep, Patterson paces.  Case files blur in front of her eyes.  She somehow manages to FaceTime a contact and colleague at NCIS in Washington, D.C.  After hearing Patterson’s plea, Abby Sciuto promises to be on the first plane in the morning; she’ll arrive around 11 to assess Jane’s bloodwork and run more tests.

 

“If the ZIP is interacting with the psych meds, I’ll be able to tell,” Abby says. “And we can find a solution.”

 

Patterson nods somewhat numbly.

 

“She’s important to you, isn’t she?”

 

Again Patterson nods, shifting Moira against her shoulder. “I don’t even know _how_ ,” she says softly.

 

“Love’s like that sometimes,” Abby says gently. “We don’t get to pick it and we don’t often have chances to explain it or change it… but it redeems us and makes us whole.  I look forward to meeting her.”

 

Around 11 Patterson finally gets through to Weller, video conferencing him, setting her laptop up on the small table near the rocking chair in Moira’s room.

 

“You haven’t been sleeping” are the first words out of Weller’s mouth.

 

“No,” Patterson says.

 

“We talked about this.”

 

Patterson rubs her forehead.  She has, in fact, talked to Weller about exactly this topic.  After Moira was born, something in Patterson had wrenched drastically out of line.  For the first time she feared that David’s murderer would come after Moira - she didn’t care for herself, but she would fight like hell to make sure the people responsible for her heartbreak never touched their daughter.  Weller discovered Patterson hadn’t slept for three weeks after Moira’s birth because she was sitting up every night, trying to protect what was hers.  The dark rings under her eyes looked like dark thumbprint bruises, and she’d nearly passed out twice at work.  Weller wrangled Reade, Zapata, and Jane into joining him in a rotation, so that every night Patterson could sleep without worry.  Weller was the first one to go after Patterson when she looked tired or when she forgot to eat.  

 

He found her just outside the bathroom one afternoon; she was leaning over, her forehead against the wall, praying for strength.

 

_“Patterson?  You all right?”_

 

_She nodded, unable or unwilling to open her mouth, even though it was the furthest thing from the truth.  She was nauseous and woozy and there was a faint ringing in her ears._

 

_The next thing she knew Weller had her by the upper arms, propelling her away from the bathrooms.  Seeing how she squinted in the light, he took her into the closest office and turned off the lights, flicking the blinds down as he did so._

 

_“When was the last time you ate?”  His voice was deliberately quiet._

 

_Patterson’s voice came out like a grating whisper. “I don’t… I don’t remember.”_

 

_She gripped the edge of the table._

 

_“You have to eat,” Weller said firmly. “Put your head down on the table and rest for a few minutes.  I’ll get you something to eat.”_

 

_“The baby,” Patterson said faintly.  She couldn’t remember where Moira was, and a small and terrible part of her realized she didn’t care._

 

_“Jane has her,” Weller said. “You just rest.”_

 

_Patterson closed her eyes and her head met the table; she was nearly instantly asleep.  She wasn’t sure how long she slept but eventually she was aware of a gentle hand on her shoulder.  She looked up and saw Zapata. “Hmmm?”_

 

_“Weller sent me with some food,” Zapata answered. “He said you were supposed to eat it all, even if I had to sit on you.”_

 

_It took Patterson nearly an hour to force down the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chips, carrots, and an apple.  Her body rebelled fiercely with each bite, and more than once Zapata dove for the garbage can, thinking Patterson was about to vomit._

 

_“I don’t want to do this anymore,” Patterson said._

 

_“You’re almost done with the sandwich,” Zapata coached._

 

 _“Not the sandwich,” Patterson said, although the last thing she wanted to do was take another bite of food.  It all tasted like sawdust.  Her brain was full of words and anger and restless energy and she knew, she_ _knew_ _that if David was there, he’d be like a balm to everything wrong._

 

_But he wasn’t there._

 

_She gagged and pushed the sandwich away._

 

_“Keep going,” Zapata said firmly. “You need to eat.”_

 

_Eventually the food was gone and all of it stayed down.  Eventually Patterson learned to think about her choices, to eat and sleep when Moira slept or ate.  She talked to Mayfair more; after all, it was Mayfair’s kindness that allowed Patterson to keep Moira with her during the day._

 

_And she talked to David.  She screamed at him, standing out on the balcony, shaking her fists in rage.  She pleaded with the heavens to send him back.  She whispered his name to Moira, telling her of a father she’d never know.  She told him how much she missed him.  She prayed for his help in getting through this._

 

_So far he hasn’t done anything._

 

“Patterson?” Weller’s voice comes through her computer speakers and she jumps.

 

“Sorry,” Patterson says. “Just… lost in thought.”

 

“If you’d sleep you’d actually be able to think.”

 

Patterson gives him a wan smile. “Every time I think I can drift off, the baby wakes up.  Or I jerk myself out of a dream about waking up to find Jane dead.”

 

Weller’s lips purse.

 

“She’s… she’s unlike anyone I’ve ever known,” Patterson says. “She could probably kill me forty different ways with a Q-Tip and yet all I want to do is protect her.”

 

Weller nods.

 

Moira fusses and then starts to cry steadily.

 

“Hang on,” Patterson says to Weller.  She scoops Moira out of the crib, soothing the baby, and settles Moira against her to nurse. “I called a friend to come in and analyze Jane’s bloodwork.  She’ll be here in the morning.”

 

“Today,” Weller says.

 

Patterson gives him a confused look until she realizes it’s just after three in the morning. “Today,” she agrees.

 

Weller fills her in on the case they’re working in LA - tracking down a man whose tree tattoo matched the description Jane had given them.  That particular man was arrested the week prior but somehow managed to get out of the police station without anyone seeing him.  Weller and Zapata were following all leads, trying to locate the one person who might know Jane’s true identity.

 

Moira gives a soft snuffle and snuggles into Patterson’s chest.

 

“I should let you go,” Weller says to Patterson. “You should try to get some sleep.”

 

Before Patterson can reply the door to the baby’s room slams open and Patterson has just enough time to see a bright flash of light before a searing pain flares across her shoulder.  It’s so sudden and sharp that it knocks the wind out of her and all she can do is groan weakly, trying not to drop Moira.

 

“Patterson?” Weller demands, alarmed.

 

“I think… I think she shot me.” She can feel something dripping from her shoulder.  Patterson forces her gaze upwards, to the figure standing in the doorway. “Jane?” she gets out.

 

“Shut up,” Jane barks.

 

Now frozen, Patterson draws Moira to her, putting her body between Jane and Moira.

 

“Jane!” Weller yells. “Put the gun down, Jane!”

 

Jane’s attention is drawn to Weller’s visage on Patterson’s computer screen.  In her hands, the gun slowly lowers.

 

“Listen to me,” Weller says, his voice softer, gently persuading. “Put the gun down.  Put it on the floor.”

 

“But she’ll… she’ll hurt me,” Jane says confusedly.

 

“No, she won’t,” Weller says, still gently trying to convince her. “Patterson is your friend.”

 

Patterson tries not to whimper in pain but it doesn’t work.  Things are getting fuzzy.  She presses her hand against the wound in her shoulder and concentrates, hard, on keeping Moira against her.

 

It’s then she hears the voice.  David’s voice.

 

_Hang on, you gorgeous warrior woman.  You can’t go to sleep just yet.  Fight._

 

“Fight,” Patterson murmurs, and she wraps her arm tighter around Moira.

 

“Put it down, Jane,” Weller repeats. “Patterson doesn’t want to hurt you.  She wants to keep you safe.  She wants to keep her baby safe.”

 

Jane’s gaze moves jerkily back to Patterson. “Baby.”

 

“That’s right,” Weller says. “There’s a baby.  Patterson’s baby.  You don’t want to hurt the baby.”

 

 _Remember when we got donuts and ate them in the park?_ David’s voice asks Patterson.

 

She nods.

 

_I took bites of yours and you took bites of mine.  Of course neither of us liked what the other had…_

 

Patterson blinks.  She wants to put Moira down before she drops her.  The room is tilting around her.

 

 _Hey.  You fight_ , David’s voice orders her.

 

“‘M tired,” Patterson murmurs.

 

 _Fight_ _._

 

“Put it down, Jane,” Weller repeats. “Put the gun down.”

 

“Put it down,” Jane whispers, and Patterson sees her lower the weapon to the floor.  Hears the gun clatter across the floor, away from the master assassin.

 

“Good,” Weller says. “I’m going to call for some help.  Hang on, Patterson.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Patterson gets out, and she feels her arms go limp; the world drops away.

  


* * *

 

 

She blinks back to consciousness in a very white room.  Her shoulder throbs and her mouth is dry.  Her thoughts come to her slowly, as though they’re rising through a pool of taffy.

 

A smooth hand takes hers. “You with us, sweetheart?”

 

“David?” Patterson murmurs.

 

There’s a pause. “No, honey.  It’s Director Mayfair.”

 

Patterson blinks and more things come back to her. “Moira,” she says urgently. “Where’s Moira?”

 

“She’s safe.  She’s with Reade.”

 

Patterson swallows.  Her mouth feels sticky.

 

Mayfair guides a straw to her mouth, and Patterson drinks gratefully.  She’s so tired.

 

“Are you in a lot of pain?”

 

“No,” Patterson says, her eyes growing heavy.  One last question bubbles up. “Jane?”

 

“Your friend arrived from DC to analyze the bloodwork,” Mayfair says. “Jane’s being held in protective custody at the FBI.”

 

“She’s safe?”

 

Mayfair hesitates.  Then she seems to reconsider. “Yes.  She’s safe for now.”

 

Patterson lets her eyes slide closed.

 

* * *

   


The door opens and Jane jerks up. “Weller,” she breathes, and she rushes towards him, grabbing onto his shirt. “Weller, I did something terrible to Patterson but I can’t remember everything and they won’t let me see her and I think she might be dead.”

 

“Slow down,” Weller says, and he walks her back to the bed.  He sits down next to her.  She’s trembling. “Slow down.”

 

Jane clings to him. “I’m so sorry,” she whimpers. “Please tell me I didn’t…”

 

She can’t finish her sentence with the words _kill her_.

 

“No,” Weller says. “Patterson is fine.”

 

Jane sags against him. “She’s not dead.”

  
“She’s not dead.  You shot her through the shoulder, through and through.  She needed some surgery to repair a severed tendon, so she’s still in the hospital.  But she’s going to be fine.”

 

“I’m so sorry,” Jane whispers. “I don’t know what happened.”

 

“There’s a forensics specialist here from DC who’s analyzing your bloodwork right now,” Weller says. “She has some ideas.”

 

He holds her for a few beats before she speaks. “I need you to go to Patterson’s apartment.  Get my stuff.”

 

Weller doesn’t say anything.

 

“She won’t want me there anymore,” Jane goes on. “I could have killed her.  I could have _killed_ Patterson.  And Mo wouldn’t remember _either_ of her parents and it would have been because of me.  So she won’t want me.”

 

“Why don’t you wait on that,” Weller says.  He takes out his phone and taps the screen a few times.  After a brief second Patterson’s face appears.

 

She looks drawn and pale, but she smiles when she sees Jane. “Hi, Jane.”

 

Jane’s eyes fill with tears. “I’m so sorry,” she says. “I understand if you don’t want me around anymore.  I can ask for a different lead agent and…”

 

“Jane,” Patterson says, “I’m not upset with you.”

 

“What?” Jane asks.  It’s hard to comprehend.

 

“I spoke to my forensics friend who’s there analyzing things and there’s a reason for what happened.  You couldn’t have prevented it.  There wasn’t anything you could have done to stop what happened.  The shooting… we should have been more careful, but it’s nobody’s fault.”

 

“And Mo?” Jane’s voice trembles.

 

“Mayfair and Reade are taking care of her right now,” Patterson says. “They’ll probably let me out of here later today or tomorrow morning.”

 

Jane puts her head in her hands.

 

“And I figured out another tattoo,” Patterson says.

 

Jane looks up, seeing her friend’s smiling face.

 

“It’s okay, Jane.  We’re going to figure it out,” Patterson says.

 

And though everything in Jane wants to cry out and say _no_ , she nods at Patterson. “You’re my border.”

 

“And you’re the center,” Patterson replies.

 

It’s those words, the ones that truly express what Patterson and Jane are to each other, that finally settle Jane’s stomach.

  
“I’ll see you soon,” Patterson says, and Jane believes her.


	4. Chapter 4

Patterson holds the smile as she hears Weller tell Jane, “I’ll be right back.”

She holds it until Weller nods at her, while the camera follows the ceiling as he leaves the room where Jane is.  She manages to hold it until he speaks: “I’m so sorry you had to do that.”

Then the smile falls and Patterson crumples in on herself, sobbing.

“It’s okay,” Weller says helplessly.

“No, it isn’t,” Patterson cries. “She _shot_ me!”

Then she jerks back upright, tears streaming down her face. “I’m so sorry.  I didn’t mean to get angry.”              

“Patterson,” Weller says firmly. “She _shot_ you.  She threatened the life of your _child_.  Getting angry is the right answer.  I know if you were in your right mind, you’d agree with me.”

“I’m so sorry,” Patterson sobs.

Weller’s voice gets sharper. “Listen to me.  You have nothing to apologize for.   _Nothing_.  Get that through your head.”

“I’m so sorry,” Patterson repeats.  She brings one hand up and covers her eyes.

The camera moves and Weller sees Patterson’s friend Abby, the forensic scientist from D.C. “Hey,” she says.

“Hi,” Weller says.  He likes Abby.  Abby’s good for Patterson. “How is she?”

Abby lowers her voice.  He can see her step away from Patterson’s bed. “She’s… upset.  Although I bet you picked up on that, what with you being an FBI agent and all that.  She’s been going in and out of a hazy stupor.  The pain meds aren’t quite cutting it and she’s getting pretty panicked when she’s awake.  I don’t know how she managed to make it through that.”

Abby looks over at something.  When she returns to the screen, she says, “They’re going to release her here in about an hour.  I’ll go back to her apartment with her and the baby.  From there I’ll be able to uplink my findings to the FBI.”

“Thank you,” Weller says. “We’ll keep Jane here until there are some more answers.”

Abby nods.

“Hey, when you get Patterson home - make sure she eats.”

Abby grins at him. “Kurt, I’ve been around the block quite a few times.  I think I know how to handle someone on painkillers who’s grieving and confused.”

“Yeah, you do,” Weller says.  He lowers his voice. “Thanks for taking care of our girl.”

“I’d do anything for her,” Abby says, and the tone of her voice, the set of her face, and the fact Weller knows she’s not much given to hyperbole all reassures him - _she means it_.

“Call if you need anything,” Weller tells her. “We’ll have Zapata stay in the building with you for tonight.”

He hangs up and looks through the door of the observation room.  He can see Jane pacing.

“Weller.” Mayfair approaches, looking tired. “How is she?”

“Which ‘she’ are we talking about?” Weller asks.

“Considering I just left Patterson at the hospital with Ms. Sciuto, I’m referring to Jane,” Mayfair answers.  She leans against the wall next to him.

“She’s confused,” Weller says. “Anxious.  Terrified that she’s upset Patterson.  And Borden says she doesn’t remember the actual shooting - only what happened after the paramedics showed up.  And even then, the thing she was most focused on was Moira’s crying.”

Mayfair rubs her forehead. “What do we do now?”

“I think staying here is only going to upset Jane,” Weller replies, “but my guess is that Patterson wouldn’t want Jane back at _her_ apartment, and I’m nervous about leaving Jane at the safe house.  I’d trust those guys with my life, but somehow all six of them managed to miss her erratic behavior.”

“You want her to go home with you,” Mayfair says.

Weller nods grimly. “My sister and Sawyer are back in Pennsylvania with Dad for the week.  It would be just me and her.”

“You sure you’re ready for this kind of responsibility?”

Weller looks down at his shoes. “I wanted Taylor back into my life.  Then I got who I _thought_ was Taylor back into my life.  Then by the time we realized she might not be Taylor, I discovered it doesn’t matter.  If she’s Taylor, if she’s not… Jane is still important to me.  The woman in there went through things no one should have ever to.  She’s here with us, she belongs with us and…” 

Mayfair holds up a hand. “It’s all right, Kurt.  I understand.  I feel the same way.  Whoever Jane is, she’s clearly _ours_.” 

She sighs. “But Patterson’s ours too.  And that baby.  If anything happens to that baby…” 

She trails off.  Weller knows, deep down, Mayfair loves Moira.  Mayfair loved being able to bring Patterson the good news - that Moira would be able to stay with Patterson throughout the day until the baby was old enough for a daycare program.  Mayfair being Mayfair, she refuses to let any of this sweetness or light into her expression.  But Weller’s seen their director holding Moira while Patterson’s at lunch or otherwise occupied, and the older woman has the air of a patient, loving grandmother.  Mayfair talks to Moira - like she’s a teenager, mostly, but sometimes in that silly baby-talk voice - and holds toys out for her, feeds her from a bottle, wraps her in a snuggly blanket before putting her down for a nap, sings to her.

She’ll never admit it, but Weller knows the truth.  Bethany Mayfair is completely head-over-heels for the blue-eyed girl named Moira Jane.  And if they’re going to be completely honest, Mayfair is the one who started calling the baby “Mo,” a habit everyone else on the team picked up immediately.

“Take her home,” Mayfair says. “I’ll have Ms. Sciuto ping her research over to you.” 

Weller takes a few steps forward and stops with his hand on the doorknob. 

“Weller?”

He looks back at Mayfair.

Her voice is steely. “I don’t care how we handle this, but if anything like this happens _ever_ again, Jane will never see this team again.  We’ll reassign her.  I can’t afford to lose Patterson.”

“I know,” Weller answers, thinking _I feel exactly the same way_.

* * *

Once Moira’s bottle is drained, Abby wrestles the portable crib out into the living room and lays Moira in it.  Patterson’s already on the couch in the living room, curled up with her back to the room.  Abby grabs her laptop and sets it up, sitting down next to Patterson.

It takes another hour for all of her data to finish compiling.  In that time Moira doesn’t move and neither does Patterson.  Abby runs her fingers through Patterson’s hair, the blonde warm and close.  She wishes it wasn’t so damn quiet - her lab in DC is always full of music, the louder the better.

She strokes Patterson’s head once more and at last the blonde shifts.  Patterson turns her head towards Abby and, eyes still closed, mumbles something.

“What, darling?” Abby asks softly.

“David,” Patterson murmurs.  Then her voice turns anguished, her breathing erratic. “David, _please_.   _Please_ don’t leave us.”

“Patterson,” Abby says, gently rubbing the young woman’s shoulder. “Patterson, wake up.”

“ _Please_ ,” Patterson whimpers.  As Abby watches, her hand snakes down to her stomach, caressing it as though Moira was somewhere still inside instead of twenty feet away. “I’m so sorry, David.”

Abby shakes Patterson a little stronger, and with a gasp Patterson’s eyes open. “Oh!  Abby!”

“It’s just me,” Abby says. “You okay?”

Patterson pushes herself upright. “Yeah.  Yeah,” she says, pulling her knees in towards her chest. “Just… ugh.”

“It’s been one of those weeks, huh?”

Patterson nods. “Distract me.  Tell me what you found out.” 

“Well, here’s the shakedown,” Abby says. “After your… incident… and before I got here, they had to sedate Jane.  She was absolutely distraught… she thought she killed you.  While she was under I had time to run a few diagnostic tests.  That Dr. Borden - what a dish, by the way - let me use his privileges at the hospital, so I was able to get full blood panels and a bunch of different scans.” 

She taps the keyboard, bringing up a few different images. “Turns out there’s something under the scar on her neck.”

Patterson rubs her face. “Something like…?”

“It’s small, roughly square, and about an inch long,” Abby replies. “And get this - it’s coated in something that induced hallucinations and severe anxiety in Jane.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anything like that before,” Patterson says.

“Whoever did it used a synthetic gelatin coating,” Abby says, and she pulls up a closer X-ray image of the “something” inside Jane’s neck. “It was designed to disintegrate over time.  Then under that, I’m assuming, was a layer of time-release hallucinogenics - which are still in her body but on the way out.”

“What would the point of all this be?”

“I don’t know,” Abby answers. “That’s your department, honestly.”

“So the gelatin coating lasted for… a year.  Then the psychopharmacological coating disintegrates over a period of two months.  What’s the timetable on the drugs getting out of her system?”

Abby taps the keyboard again. “It should be within the next twenty-four to forty-eight hours.  I’m surprised she hasn’t already started to detox…”

Patterson thinks about this. “Would that look like typical detox?”

Abby shrugs. “These are some super-heavy meds in doses I’ve never seen before.  My guess is yes, but with even more severe effects.”

“The vomiting,” Patterson says. “It’s already started.  Where’s my phone?”

Abby finds it among the baby gear on the coffee table and passes it to her.  Patterson stands as she dials, looking down at the sleeping baby in the portable crib.

“Weller?” Patterson says.

“Patterson.  How are you?”

“I’m doing okay.  Abby and I are here looking over the results of Jane’s tests, and I just wanted to let you know that Jane’s probably going to be pretty out of it overnight.  Expect vomiting, chills, potentially a fever, confusion, and shaking.  If it gets really bad, there might be seizures and hallucinations.”

“And what’s causing all of this?” Weller asks.

“It’s difficult to explain, but it should be over by the end of the day tomorrow.  Keep an eye on her, keep her comfortable.  Abby and I will come into the office and explain everything to the team.”

“Okay,” Weller says, but he still sounds unsure. “Let me know if there’s anything you need.” 

“Weller,” Patterson says, and then she flushes, embarrassed.

“What is it?” His voice sounds gentle, kind.

“Um, just… thanks.  For being a friend.  For… supporting me.  Um, and tell her… tell her I miss her.”

“I sure will, kid,” Weller answers. “Take care of yourself, okay?”

“Okay,” Patterson whispers.

She hangs up and scoops Moira out of the crib, holding her daughter tight against her, desperate for one thing the world still hasn’t ruined.

* * *

Jane looks up at Weller. “I don’t want to watch this.” 

“It’s ‘Entertainment Tonight.’  It’s fluff for your brain,” Weller says.  He rummages around in the kitchen, pulling out soup, saltines, and ginger ale. 

“I want to watch ‘Wheel of Fortune.’” 

“Okay, so, find it.” 

“Why are you getting that stuff out?  I’m not sick.” 

Weller pours the soup into a saucepan and sets it on the oven, snapping on the burner beneath it.  Before he can answer, Jane leaps up from the couch and comes over to the kitchen.  She grabs onto his sleeve. “Weller.  Patterson.  I need to talk to Patterson.” 

“No, Jane.” 

“I _need_ to talk to Patterson.” Jane tugs on his sleeve.

Weller fills a glass with ginger ale. “Jane, think about this logically.  You shot Patterson.  Can you understand, maybe, that she doesn’t want to talk to you?”

Jane’s eyes go wide. “She’s mad at me?”

Weller sighs. “No, Jane.  She’s not mad.  She’s… hurt.  And confused.”

“That’s worse.”

“Come on.  Let’s find ‘Wheel of Fortune.’”

They get half-way through “Wheel of Fortune” before Jane starts choking.  Weller grabs for the ginger ale.  Jane shoves away from him, curling in on herself, gagging and choking. 

“Up, up,” Weller prods her, and grabs her by the elbows, leading her over to the garbage can. 

Jane vomits for several long minutes, heaving and gasping in between each spasm.  She wails at Weller, choking, coughing, her arms floppy and her body seemingly unresponsive.  At last she crumples to her knees in Weller’s kitchen. “No,” she tells him when he comes towards her with a washcloth.  She’s shaking, and when she tries to stand she wobbles. “I have to go home.  I have to go home.” 

Weller watches as her hand comes up to pick at the scar on the back of her neck.  Her voice drops to a low mutter, her fingernails working incessantly at the raised tissue. “Go home.  I have to go home.  Take me home.”

“Tonight you’re staying with me,” Weller says, easing her hand away from the scar. “Tonight you are home.”

“No,” she says firmly. “I have to… it hurts.”

Weller steps in front of her.  Jane’s eyes are glassy and faraway. “Where’s Patterson?” she asks him. 

“You’ll see her later,” Weller says.

“I hurt Patterson.” 

Weller takes her by the hand and leads her away from the kitchen, into Sawyer’s bedroom.  He’d quickly prepped it before her arrival, and now he sits down with her on Sawyer’s bed. “Lay down, okay?” 

“She’s so nice.” 

“I know.”

“She takes care of me.” 

Weller nods. 

“And I could have… I could have _killed_ …” Jane whimpers and puts her hands over her eyes. 

“But you didn’t.” 

“Could have _killed_ … and where’s… what would… _Moira?”_ Jane rocks back and forth.

“Jane, I need to get a few things,” Weller says. “Will you be okay?”

She doesn’t respond, and after a few minutes of watching her sob, Weller gets up.  In the kitchen he cleans out the trash can and puts a new bag into it.  He grabs a few bottles of water and brings them and the trash back into the bedroom.  Jane is curled up on her side, mumbling.  She looks up at him. “You’re going to leave too.”

“What?”

“Patterson left.  You’ll leave too.  I’ll be alone again.”

“Shh,” Weller says helplessly.

He sits by the side of the bed and strokes her hair until her eyes droop closed and her breathing evens out.  He can’t do anything about the needling knot of anxiety and grief pitted in his stomach. 

* * *

Patterson returns from nursing Moira - the baby cradled in the sling against her body - to find Borden and Abby looking over the results of Jane’s scans.  Borden turns to Patterson. “Good morning,” he says. 

Patterson nods at him; her shoulder throbs.  Her heart hasn’t slowed down since she walked into the building.  She knows Jane is somewhere in the warren of offices and labs, and she can’t remember where all the exits are.

“Ms. Sciuto and I agree that whatever this… object is, located under the scar tissue, it needs to be removed,” Borden says.

“We can sedate her - lightly, of course,” Abby says, “have a doctor make one small incision, and remove it.” 

“Can’t you do it?” Patterson asks. “You trained to work in autopsy.” 

Borden turns to look at Abby with a new light in his eyes.

“With _dead_ people,” Abby points out.

“She’ll be sedated,” Patterson says.  She feels numb.  She’s not sure how she’s still standing, except for the weight of Moira against her, centering and reassuring.

“I’m not qualified for live people,” Abby says.

In the end, Dr. Fisher, a colleague of Borden’s, does the procedure.  He gives Jane a Valium and applies a topical anesthetic before slicing into the scar.

Patterson and Abby watch from the door; Jane is unaware of their presence, as far as Patterson can tell.

Fisher takes only a few moments to widen the incision and, using a handheld ultrasonic scanner, locate the item underneath.  He fishes in with tweezers and pulls it out, holding it up for the benefit of the two forensic specialists just outside the door.

“It’s a flash card,” Abby says.

But Patterson’s attention is drawn to the conversation happening inside the room.

“We’re all finished, Jane,” Fisher says.

Jane’s groggy voice emanates up from the treatment table. “You’ll give it to Patterson, right?”

“Yes, I’ll hand it to Agent Patterson myself,” Fisher replies.

“Patterson needs it.  She’s going to need it,” Jane says.

“I’ll make sure she has it.”

“And please…” Jane’s voice cracks, as does Patterson’s heart. “Please tell her I’m so sorry.  I’m _so_ sorry.”

Fisher hesitates.  He looks over to the door.

Patterson can’t move.  Tears flood her eyes.

“I just… I love her, and if she’s scared of me…” Jane’s voice trails off.

Abby grips Patterson’s hand tightly.

“I’ll let her know,” Fisher says. “Why don’t you take a rest for a bit?”

“Mm-kay,” Jane mumbles, and puts her head down.

Patterson leans back against the wall, buries her head in her hands, and cries.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Patterson. And I love Jane. And I love them together. Writing this chapter made me feel all gooey and happy. Also, because I am a huge dork, I may have given Patterson a bit of an interesting past in this chapter. If you figure it out, two thumbs up. If not, I'll explain it next time.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who reads/reviews/gives kudos.
> 
> Enjoy!

Mayfair takes Moira and orders Patterson into the lounge. “Take your pain meds, and then lay down,” the assistant director says firmly. “Sleep for a bit.”

Patterson’s too tired to argue.  She swallows a pain pill with some lukewarm water, slips off her shoes and her cardigan, and curls into herself.  Her eyes close nearly automatically, and she drifts off.

When she wakes she finds her cardigan draped over her shoulders like a small but mostly effective blanket.  Her mouth is dry and it takes a few slippery seconds for the world to right itself.  She feels almost drunk, except for the fact that since Moira’s birth, she hasn’t had any alcohol.

Patterson realizes suddenly there’s someone else in the room with her, and she sits bolt upright.

Jane is seated on a chair opposite the couch, and Patterson’s heart rate skyrockets.

Jane holds her hands out. “I’m sorry.  I’ll leave if you want me to.”

“How long…” Patterson swallows. “How long have you been here?”

“About an hour.”

The thought of the woman who tried to kill her keeping watch while she slept  _should_ frighten Patterson, but honestly, all she feels is relief.  Jane, for all her faults and for all her blank spaces, is Patterson’s center.  Jane’s home.  Jane’s familiar.

Patterson looks up to see Jane looking at her worriedly. “What?”

“You just… seemed lost in thought,” Jane replies.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s okay.  It’s… fine.”

Patterson puts her cardigan back on and finds her shoes. “How are you feeling?” she asks, hating the clinical tone in her voice.

“Better,” Jane says. “Although I’m pretty sure this is the most I’ve ever vomited.”

“We can give you something for that,” Patterson says absently.

Jane shakes her head. “No.  It’s… it’s fine.  I wanted to come and check on you.”

She hesitates.

Patterson pats the couch next to her.

Jane tilts her head.

Patterson nods.

As though she’d only been waiting for permission, Jane jumps from the chair and sits down next to Patterson.  Patterson draws her knees to her chest and feels nothing but deep comfort when Jane wraps her arms around her.

“I’m so sorry,” Jane whispers.

Patterson leans against Jane’s chest. “It’s okay,” she murmurs. “Things were… things were pretty fucked up there.  And I meant it when I said it wasn’t your fault.”

“Borden told me there was a flash card in my neck.”

“Yeah.  I think Abby went to analyze it.” Patterson closes her eyes. “Jane?”

“Hmm?”

“Can I just…” Patterson feels drowsy.  Jane’s heartbeat sounds like a lullaby. “Can I just stay here for a bit?”

“Yeah,” Jane answers. “Just rest.”

And Patterson does, feeling more centered than she has in weeks.

* * *

“Now, listen,” Mayfair says seriously. “She’s a good person.  Very smart.  And yes, I don’t really understand her relationship with Jane, but maybe things will eventually settle down and they’ll have time to figure it out.  Don’t look at me like that.  I know Jane’s stubborn and secretive and Patterson’s… well, Patterson.  But they’re good together.”

Her conversation partner blows a raspberry.

“Well, now you’re just being silly.” Mayfair leans in and wipes drool from Mo’s face.

The baby squeals happily and rocks back and forth in her bouncer.

“Is it weird that I call her ‘Patterson’ and not ‘Mom’?” Mayfair asks. “But you’re not old enough to call her anything, so you don’t really know any better.”

Mo sticks her tongue out.

“Little smartass,” Mayfair mutters, but a smile has been on her face for most of the day.  She can’t explain it, but she’s always happy around Mo.

Weller opens the door to her office. “Patterson’s friend’s finished analyzing the data on that chip.”

“I’ll be there to see it in a few minutes,” Mayfair says. “Is Patterson awake?”

Weller shakes his head and holds his phone out to Mayfair.  She takes it, looking confusedly at him.  On the screen is a photo - Jane wrapped around a balled-up Patterson, both of them soundly asleep on the couch in the lounge.

“Oh, good,” Mayfair says before she can stop herself.  Her eyes fly up to Weller’s face.

He looks just as relieved as she feels. “I thought we’d just leave ‘em for a bit.”

“On that decision, Agent Weller, I firmly agree.  Now let’s go see what these two have suffered so much for.”

* * *

“At first I thought someone was messing with us, because at first all I could find were videos of _this_ ,” Abby says.  She clicks on a file and up pops a video player, streaming a file of what looks like a video game world; in the corner of the screen is a small picture-in-picture of a young man with glasses and scruffy hair.  As the assembled group watches, the video game character runs through a futuristic landscape, firing at a series of strangely-colored robots.  The young man’s mouth moves, but Abby has the sound turned down.

“And what is this?” Weller asks.

“His name is Trent Rosenzweig, and he lives right here in New York,” Abby replies. “Online he’s known as GamerGuy75.  He has a YouTube channel with more than eleven million subscribers.  He’s a millionaire.”

“And he just plays video games all day?” Mayfair raises an eyebrow, shifting Moira to her other shoulder.

Abby nods.

“Lucky bastard,” Weller mutters. “And this is all that was on the drive?”

"That’s what I thought,” Abby says. “But I did some more digging, and found there were several image files buried in the skip spaces between video frames.”

“Did you understand that?” Mayfair asks Weller.  

He shakes his head. “No, but Patterson would.”

Abby grins. “The basic gist is - pictures were hidden in the videos.”

“Pictures of what?” Weller leans in towards the video as though trying to see the hidden images.

“Children.  And young women.”

“Like, pornography?”

“No.  Kidnapped children, missing young women.  I was able to run some of their faces through a facial recognition program, but I need Patterson to help me with age progression on others,” Abby says. “The important part is - they’re all still alive.  Or they were, at least as of yesterday.”

She brings up a series of black-and-white images.  Some show emaciated children, their faces taut with hunger and horror, staring at the camera.  The room behind them is dark.  Others focus on young women, their hands bound behind their backs, eyes full of terror and anguish.

“The photos are dated yesterday,” Abby says.

“How is that possible?” Mayfair wants to know. “We pulled it out of Jane’s neck this morning.”

“I don’t know, but it all fits,” Abby says. “In one of the images there’s a man’s hand holding a newspaper dated this morning.  I referenced that with an actual newspaper from today - they’re the same.”

“We need to get GamerGuy75 in here,” Weller says.

“And I need Patterson,” Abby adds. “She’ll have access to some databases I’m not able to get into from here.”

“Give us some time to check out GamerGuy75,” Mayfair says. “Patterson’s resting; let’s give her a little more time.”

Abby smiles and nods. “Got it.  I’ll try to do as much recon as I can from here.”

“If you need a break, Mo can always use more friends,” Mayfair says.

The baby blows Abby a raspberry.

* * *

“You want me to go in there and interrogate a gamer dude?” Zapata asks Weller.

He nods.

“You know I’d rather stick my hand in a jar full of acid, right?”

Again Weller nods, and Zapata swears she sees a smirk forming on his face.

“Sometimes I hate you,” she mutters.

Zapata opens the door to the interrogation room.  The young man sitting behind the table looks up, and a slow smile crosses his face. “Well, when they told me to wait, I wasn’t expecting anything _this_ nice for my troubles.”

“Trent Rosenzweig?” Zapata sits down across from him.

“That’s me.” He leans forward. “Of course, you could just call me by my username - GamerGuy75.”

“I will not be doing that,” Zapata says.  She flips open the file she’d brought into the room with her and begins sliding photographs out of it.

“I’ll look at those,” Trent says, “but you’re being a bit rude.”

Zapata looks up. “I’m sorry?”

“You haven’t even told me _your_ name,” he says.

Zapata groans inwardly. “I’m Agent Zapata.”

“Agent Zapata,” Trent repeats, a satisfied expression on his face. “So, like, ‘Agent’ is your first name?”

“As far as you’re concerned, yes,” Zapata says firmly. “Now, sir, if you could take a look at these images.  I’d like you to tell me if you’ve seen them before.”

“I haven’t,” Trent says without even looking down.

“You haven’t looked at them yet.”

“Well, I haven’t seen them.  These particular photos, I mean.  You brought them in with you.”

“I believe I asked you to look at the _images_ ,” Zapata says, wishing there was some sort of law against smartasses.

Trent looks down at the photos, flipping through them in a disinterested manner. “What are these, screenshots from the latest Naughty Dog game?  Amateurish at best.  You ask me, they peaked with _The Last of Us_.”

Zapata has no idea what the hell _that_ means, and she really doesn’t care. “So you’ve never seen any of these people before?”

Trent shrugs. “They all look like NPCs in a horror game.  Other than that, nope.”

He leans back in his chair. “Is that it?  I’ve got an important livestream to get to.”

“Not today you don’t,” Zapata says.  She stands up and exits the room.

Weller’s waiting in the corridor.  Zapata punches him in the arm.

“ _Ow!_  What the hell was  _that_ for?”

“For making me deal with a man-child like that,” Zapata replies. “Also, I didn’t understand half of that.  Where’s Patterson?”

“Here,” the blonde says, yawning as she comes up the hallway behind them.  Her hair’s twisted back into a messy ponytail. “Do I really have to deal with this noob?”

“This…?” Weller studies her.

“Oh.  Uh, it’s gamer speak for a ‘newbie’ - someone who’s new to the scene,” Patterson says.

“He has eleven million followers,” Zapata says, looking down at her files.

“So does that crazy long-haired guy who stands on the corner and screams about the end of the world.” Patterson shrugs. “Let me guess - he thinks Mario is the pinnacle of video-gaming civilization.”

“Um, he mentioned something about a naughty dog…?” Zapata looks genuinely confused.

That brings Patterson up short. “Well, of course he did,” she grumbles under her breath. “All privileged assholes think they own that game.”

“You want to fill me in on the conversation you’re having in your head?” Weller asks, giving Patterson a bemused smile.

“Maybe later,” Patterson replies. “Right now I’ve got questions for this idiot.”

She takes the files from Zapata and head into the interrogation room.

“Just when I think I can’t love her more,” Weller muses.

Beside him, Zapata just nods.

* * *

“And the arm candy just keeps coming.” Trent Rosenzweig sits up in his chair.

“Shut up, jackass,” Patterson says.  She doesn’t bother sitting down before she practically shoves the pictures at him. “Where are they?”

She’s expecting the answer usually given to questions like this - _where’s who?_ \- and is therefore surprised when Trent’s response is “Holy shit, it’s you!”

Patterson gives him a steely glare. “Answer my question.   _Where are they?”_

Trent stares up at her with a mix of adoration and devotion in his eyes. “You’re… _her_ ,” he breathes.

“This is officially getting bizarre,” Patterson mutters.

He sticks out his hand. “I’m Trent.  Trent Rosenzweig.”

Patterson just stares down at it. “I know that, you idiot.  Now tell me -”

He interrupts her. “What was it like?”

“What was _what_ like?”

“God, you’re _famous!_  What are you doing at the FBI?  Why are you wearing that frumpy lab coat?  Where’s your Converse and that army jacket?”

Patterson can’t decide whether to laugh or vomit. “Are you serious?”

Trent doesn’t respond; the lovesick look in his eyes is answer enough, though.

“Jesus,” Patterson swears. “Just tell me where the girls are.”

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know, Ellie.”

“I _so_ don’t get paid enough for this.” Patterson pushes the photo of the man’s hand holding the newspaper towards him. “We know this is your hand.”

She indicates the gold ring prominent on the man’s hand. “This ring has a seal on it featuring an eagle and a sun.  It’s one of ten ever made, given specifically to ten members of the senior class of Mount Weirdon Preparatory School who received Headmasters’ Scholarships, and _you_ were one of those.  We checked out the other nine, and surprise, surprise, Trent - you were the one voted most likely to imprison women and children in a post-apocalyptic bunker somewhere.”

She points to a vaguely half-moon-shaped birthmark. “And I know this is a birthmark you have - cross-referenced it myself with several videos of you gaming at conventions where your hands on controllers were prominently featured.  Now _where are they?”_

For the first time in his stay at the FBI, Trent Rosenzweig looks a little nervous. “Look, you don’t want me,” he says, stuttering a bit. “You want Gruff.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.  What’s Gruff’s real name?”

“That’s what he told me to call him,” Trent says. “He just told me to hold up this newspaper and take a picture of it, then upload that picture to a secure hosting site.”

“How can we get in touch with Gruff?”

“I’ve got a phone number.  And he usually leaves me messages on a bulletin board on the third floor of the science building at Weston College.”

Patterson pushes a notepad at him and watches while he scribbles down a series of numbers.  She stands and gathers her files.

“Wait!” Trent calls out as she turns to leave. “Um, am I free to go?”

“We’ll see,” Patterson says.

As she exits to the hallway, she hears him whisper, “ _God, that was_ _so_ _badass.”_

She resists the urge to face-palm.

Weller and Zapata are both grinning as she approaches.

“What?”

“Who’s Ellie?” Weller asks.

“We know it’s not you,” Zapata adds.

Patterson tries to stare them down.

“Not going to work,” Zapata says. “I taught you everything you know, girl.”

Patterson flushes. “No you didn’t,” she mutters. “Jane taught me some stuff too.”

“That guy thought he knew you,” Weller says. “Does he?”

“No more so than millions of people around the world do,” Patterson says helplessly.

She sighs. “Listen, do you remember when McSorley and I were kidnapped?”

“Of course we do,” Zapata says, her face going solemn in an instant. “It was the worst seventeen days of our lives.”

“And mine.” Patterson’s eyes go dark for a moment.  Then she takes a deep breath and straightens up. “So, after that, when I took a year off, I did some… unconventional work.”

Weller’s eyes widen. “Were you…?”

“It wasn’t porn!” Patterson blurts out. “God, no.  Long story short, my brother knows some folks out in LA who make video games.  And somehow he got me an audition to be in one of their games, and I got it.  I thought it was stupid, and it was just going to be some app nobody even saw, but…”

She shakes her head. “It sold millions of copies.  It’s been ranked as one of the best games of the century.”

Weller’s mouth drops open. “How did we not know about this?”

“Well, I don’t talk about it much, and… honestly, you guys don’t ask the right questions.” Patterson’s shoulder starts to ache. “Can we just catch the bad guys and after it’s all over, I’ll show you the game?”

“I don’t think we’ll have to wait that long,” Zapata says. “I’ve got Google.”

* * *

An hour or so later, Patterson’s discovered that Gruff’s real name is Erik Tidemore, he’s forty-seven, and he lives in Brooklyn.  She’s also found him on several security cameras at Weston College, leaving several messages on a bulletin board, presumably for Trent.  That’s as much as she can do before she feels woozy and nauseous.  She sways on her feet, clamping her hands around the edge of her desk.

Jane sees something in her face and grabs her nearly immediately, lowering both of them to the floor.  Weller leans in and quickly undoes the sling holding Moira to Patterson’s body.  Patterson mumbles something, one hand pressed to her shoulder, and then leans to one side, coughing and retching.

“What happened?” Jane asks Weller, eyes wide. “She was fine!  Did I…?”

“This isn’t your fault,” Weller says firmly, cradling Moira to him. “She hasn’t eaten today and she’s taken at least two pain pills.”

“So it’s an amazing case of someone pulling a Patterson,” Zapata observes archly.

“I’m sorry,” Patterson gets out, and she retches again.

“Jesus,” Reade says.  He grabs the garbage can and puts it in front of Patterson.

At last her stomach stops spasming and she leans back against Jane. “Water,” she croaks. “I need water.  And…”

“And everything from the Patterson Needs to Eat kit in your office,” Jane says decisively.

“Ehhh…” Patterson says weakly, and waves her hand at Weller.

Weller rolls his eyes and straps Moira around him as he makes the trek down the hall to Patterson’s office.  The baby looks up at him, blue eyes wide, and gnaws on her fist.

“Your mother is both an angel and a pain in my rear,” he says to her. “She cares so much about others that she’s willing to sacrifice her well-being for them.”

He presses a kiss to the top of her downy head. “I hope you’re just like her.  Minus the self-sacrifice, okay?”

Mo makes a short sucking noise with her fingers in her mouth, and Weller takes that as an answer.

He finds the plastic toolbox marked, incongruously enough, “Patterson Needs to Eat,” and carries it back to the lab.  Patterson looks up at him groggily.

Jane takes charge, holding out her hands for the toolbox.  Weller gladly relinquishes it and stands back, rubbing Mo on her head until the baby lets out a soft sigh and drifts off to sleep.

Jane removes a juice box from the kit first, stabs it with the tiny straw, and shoves it into Patterson’s hand.

“Water,” Patterson groans. _“Water.”_

“Drink it,” Jane says sharply in a tone that leaves no room for argument.

Weakly Patterson gets the straw to her mouth.  As she sips the juice she seems to regain some of her previous vigor; by the time it’s gone Jane has a protein bar and an apple waiting. “You choose.  Both are getting eaten.”

Patterson turns her head.

“You choose or I choose,” Jane says. “Pick one and I’ll give you some water.”

Grouchily Patterson takes the apple and bites into it.

“She’s good at this,” Reade murmurs to Weller. “Think they’ve done this before?”

Weller smiles, still rubbing the baby’s head. “They’ve lived together, more or less, for half a year.  I think Jane does this a lot.”

The protein bar is mostly gone when Mayfair comes in. “Go home,” she says to the assembled group, though her eyes rest specifically on Patterson and Jane. “You’ve all had a very long day.”

The assistant director looks over at Abby. “Your lead agent called - he wants you back ASAP.  His phrasing, not mine.”

Abby grins. “I can hear him now.  I think most of my work here is done.  I’ll check in with Dr. Borden before I leave, and I’ll email my test results to all of you.”

Jane gets Patterson to her feet and lets the blonde wobble over to her friend for parting remarks.  The tattooed woman turns to Weller. “Hand her over,” she says, nodding to Moira.

“I’m going to take you home,” Weller says, though he smiles affectionately at Jane’s familiarity with the baby.

“That’s the most amazing thing I think you’ve ever said to me,” Jane says.

* * *

She’s the one who finds them both a drink, once Moira’s been bottle-fed and sung to sleep and placed in her crib and Patterson’s been forced through a meal and a shower and is curled up in dreamland.  Weller sits on Patterson’s couch, staring at the blank eye of the switched-off TV.

Jane hands him a beer and perches next to him with a bottle in her hand. “It’s been a messed-up couple of days.”

Weller nods.

“I like this better,” Jane goes on softly. “Being back in my own head.  Able to…”

She trails off.  Thinking of Patterson and Moira asleep in their respective beds, both fed and clean and cared for, Weller says, “I know.”

“They’re my family,” Jane whispers.

Weller squeezes her knee and she leans against him. “If you’d told me… more than a year ago… that after I crawled out of that bag in Times Square, I’d be so happy… so loved… I would have laughed in your face.”

“You deserve it,” Weller says gently. “You deserve all of it.”

Jane takes a drink. “Sometimes I think about him, though.  Especially when we’re here.”

It takes Weller a moment to figure out who she’s talking about, then follows her line of sight to a picture of David and Patterson on top of the TV.

“I think he’d be pleased that you’re here,” Weller says. “He cared very deeply for Patterson, and knowing that she’s still being loved… I think he’d like that very much.”

“I hope he’d like me,” Jane murmurs.

She falls asleep against Weller, and he carries her into the bedroom, settling her next to Patterson.  He bends down to untie her shoes and remove them, and when he stands up to pull the blankets over Jane he’s unsurprised to see that even in sleep, Patterson’s reached out for Jane, and Jane’s twined her hand through Patterson’s - tattooed patterns against pale and clear - and it warms something in his chest.

Weller goes back to the couch and finishes his beer.  He’s almost asleep himself, the baby monitor on the coffee table next to him broadcasting Moira’s ocean-wave breathing, when his phone buzzes.

It’s a text message from Zapata: _You are not going to believe this._

Attached is a YouTube video - “The Making of _The Last Of Us.”_  Weller hits play, and within the first five minutes, he realizes he’s not going to be sleeping quite so soon.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been awhile. I've been in the glorious hole that is the Critical Role fandom. Enjoy!

One of Patterson’s assistants finds Erik Tidemore the next morning, and calls while Jane is cleaning and redressing the scientist’s shoulder wound. “We’ve got a problem,” Patterson says to Jane. “First of all, if you use any more of that hydrogen peroxide I’m going to punch you in the gut.”

“Sorry,” Jane murmurs. “Just… trying to make sure it’s disinfected.”

“I can feel germs scurrying to the next county.  Trust me, it’s good,” Patterson says.

“What’s the problem?” Jane asks. 

“Erik Tidemore is dead.” 

“What?”

“That’s what I said.  Our gaming genius claims he’s been interacting with Erik Tidemore, and we’ve got _someone_ on camera at Weston College leaving messages for Trent Rosenzweig, but there’s a death certificate on file for Erik Tidemore.”

“Technically that gamer guy said he’d just been interacting with someone named Gruff,” Weller opines from the bathroom door.  Moira is over his shoulder, making unhappy snuffling noises. “We were the ones who connected Gruff to Erik Tidemore.” 

“Because the guy on the videos from Weston College face-matched to Erik Tidemore.” 

“Who is dead,” Jane says. 

“Apparently,” Patterson says. 

“When did he die?”

“Eight years ago,” Patterson replies. “Which makes no sense.”

She holds her hands out for the baby.  Weller obligingly hands Moira over and Patterson pulls up her tank top to nurse.

“Seems like we have a lot of dead ends here,” Weller says.

Patterson shakes her head. “I think you need to pay a visit to Erik Tidemore.”

“But he’s dead,” Jane says.  She affixes a new gauze pad to the wound and begins wrapping gauze around Patterson’s shoulder.

“Somebody posted those notes for Trent,” Weller says.  He leans against the door frame. “It’s time we find out who.”

 

* * *

 

Erik Tidemore lives - or, lived, technically, since his death certificate is definitely on file - in the upper half of a duplex on the east side of the city.  As the three agents approach the front door, Reade taps the mailboxes. “His name’s still here.”

“Did he have a family?” Zapata asks.

Weller looks down at his phone. “According to Patterson, just a sister.  And there’s no address for her.”

“Is it possible she’s the one behind the notes for our gamer guy?” Reade presses the doorbell for the Tidemore apartment.

“Anything’s possible,” Weller says.

They hear the bell ring inside the apartment, and they wait for several long minutes afterwards.  No one comes to the door.

At least, no one comes to the door for the Tidemore apartment.  The door to the first-floor apartment opens and a blond woman sticks her head out. “Good morning.  Are you here about renting the apartment?”

“It’s for rent?” Weller asks. “We have it here that it’s rented to Erik Tidemore.”

The woman nods. “Yeah, it is, but unfortunately he passed away several years ago and it’s been empty ever since.  His sister pays the rent on it for some reason, but I have her permission to show it to anyone who might be interested in moving in.”

Reade raises his eyebrow. “That doesn’t seem strange to you?”

“Oh, yeah, it rings all of my strange bells,” the woman responds. “But when you’re as rich as God and you pay the rent on time I ignore all those bells.”

“We’re with the FBI,” Weller says, quickly introducing himself, Reade, and Zapata.

“I’m Melanie Laing.” She sticks out her hand and shakes with each member of the team. “I’ve got the keys to the place if you’re interested.”

“I guess it couldn’t hurt.” Weller smiles. 

“Come on in, I’ll find ‘em,” Melanie says.  She leads them into a well-appointed apartment filled with sunlight and plants.  The furniture is shabby but clean, and everything seems tidy and well-loved. “So, is Leslie in trouble or something?” 

“Leslie?” Zapata asks.

“That’s Erik’s sister,” Melanie responds.

“We don’t have an address for her,” Weller says. “Do you have her contact information?” 

Melanie nods. “I’ll find it for you.” 

She grabs a set of keys from the kitchen. 

“How long have you lived here?” Weller asks. “Did you know Erik?” 

“I’ve been here about ten years,” Melanie answers, “so I knew him for a bit.  He was an odd duck.”

“How so?”

“Kept to himself.  Wasn’t really interested in neighborhood activities, and everyone around here definitely tried to get him involved,” Melanie says. “He worked from home, so he was always here, but… he wasn’t interested in very much.  At least, as far as I knew.”

She unlocked the door to the other apartment. “Anyway, feel free to have a look around.  I’ll find Leslie’s information for you.  If something came up related to Erik’s case, I’m sure she’d be more than happy to talk to you.”

“His… case?”

Melanie frowns. “You mean, you’re not here about Erik’s case?”

“We’re here following a lead related to another case,” Weller says.

“So they haven’t found out who murdered Erik?”

“Murdered…” Weller turns to look at Zapata and Reade as they all suddenly realize that though they knew there was a death certificate on file for Mr. Tidemore, none of them had taken the time to read it.

Melanie turns to look at them strangely. “Yeah.  I thought that’s why the FBI would be here.”

She looks at their confused faces. “You had no idea he was murdered.” 

“We didn’t,” Weller admits.

“Yeah.  It was the strangest thing,” Melanie says. “There haven’t been any leads in his case in the eight years since he died.”

“Were you here when it happened?”

“No.  I was visiting my parents that weekend.  The killer somehow got into a fully locked apartment, with all the windows and doors fully locked, killed Erik, and got out with everything still locked.  There were no fingerprints, no clues, no one who had any reason to want to hurt Erik,” Melanie answers. “What case are you looking into?”

“Unfortunately we can’t give out any details,” Weller says, “but if we have any questions, we’ll come and find you.”

Melanie nods. “Okay.  I’ll get Leslie’s phone number for you.”

“That’d be very helpful.”

She disappears back into her apartment.  Reade heads up the stairs first, with Zapata and Weller in his wake. “So we’ve got a rich sister who for some reason continues to pay the rent on the apartment where her brother was murdered eight years ago,” Zapata says as they climb, “and a man who kept to himself who was murdered in a completely locked apartment.”

“A man who’s apparently now leaving messages for twenty-something gamer assholes on a bulletin board at a college neither of them supposedly has any ties to,” Reade adds.

“Which we discovered after we found hidden photos in the gamer guy’s videos, which were, strangely enough, on a disc we found inside Jane’s neck.” Zapata picks up the story.

“Wait a minute,” Weller says as they reach the top of the stairs.

Zapata and Reade turn to look at him.

“The photos we found were in the videos on the disc,” Weller says. “But were they in the videos themselves… or did someone insert them?”

On the other agents’ curious looks, he clarifies. “Let’s say we were just looking for Trent Rosenzweig’s videos and we found them on YouTube.  Are the photos in _those_ videos too, or are the videos on the disc special?”

Zapata takes out her phone. “I bet Patterson can find out.”

 

* * *

 

“It’ll take me a little bit to analyze the YouTube stream,” Patterson says, “so I’ll get back to you on that.  I managed to track down the manufacturer of the coating that the disc was contained in.”

“How?” Weller asks.

“That kind of specialized gelatin coating?  There’s only one company manufacturing it,” Patterson says. “They developed it as a way to protect small medical implants and deliver certain types of medication at the same time.  I called the company and they said they’d never heard of anyone using it to hide an SD card, and they said it’s definitely _not_ designed to contain psychopharmacological drugs.”

“So someone at the facility… escaped with a prototype?”

“Or sold it to someone under the table.  I’m running background checks on everyone who works at the company and they’re checking their stock,” Patterson answers. “So that’ll take time too.”

“Okay.  We’re about to check out Erik Tidemore’s apartment,” Zapata says. “We’ll give you a call when we’re done.”

“Sounds good,” Patterson says. 

Reade opens the door to the apartment as Zapata hangs up, and flicks on the lights.

All three agents stand in shock as they take in the contents of Erik Tidemore’s apartment.

At last Zapata speaks. “I shouldn’t have hung up on Patterson… I’m pretty sure this is the kind of stuff she fantasizes about.”

 

* * *

 

“Are you sure about this?” Jane asks quietly.

“Well, the team’s out investigating leads on Erik Tidemore,” Patterson responds, her voice cheerful through the phone. “We might as well get a better understanding of who this ‘Gruff’ person is.”

“Okay.”

“And if it bothers you, you can stay on the phone with me the whole time.  Just look for these flyers, and if you see anyone approaching to put them up, talk to him.”

“How do you know he’ll be here today?”

“In every single video we have of Gruff leaving a flyer for Trent, he leaves it on a Friday.  And today’s a Friday.”

Jane smiles as she hears the baby cooing in the background. “How’s Mo?”

“Remarkably chipper, unlike her mother.”

“You sound pretty happy.”

“It’s amazing what four cups of black coffee will do for you,” Patterson replies.

She doesn’t speak for a few minutes, but Jane hears her typing and talking absentmindedly to Mo.

“Okay, I’m at the bulletin board,” Jane says after a few minutes of wandering the halls of the science building. “I don’t see anything that looks like the flyers Trent told us about.” 

“Well, just wait,” Patterson says. “Is there anywhere to sit down?” 

“Mm-hmm.  There’s a bench right across from it,” Jane says.

“Have a seat and keep talking to me.  We’ll wait and see if Gruff shows up.”

“Okay.  What do you want to talk about?”

Jane hears a smile in Patterson’s voice. “We could talk about why you didn’t want to go with the other agents this morning.”

“I’m not an agent,” Jane answers uncomfortably.

“Jane.”

“Well, I’m not.  And sometimes I get the feeling that they want their special ‘agent’ time.”

“What about me?  Do I ever get special agent time?”

“All the time,” Jane answers, grinning. “Usually with me.” 

“Hmm.  I like the sound of that,” Patterson says.

Then she falls quiet for a few beats.  When she speaks her voice is soft. “Jane?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think what we have is weird?”

“What we have where?”

“Everywhere.”

Jane tilts her head, pretending to consider the ads for used textbooks and math tutoring. “Our relationship?  You’re asking me if our relationship is weird?”

“It is, right?”

“Patterson.”

“I mean, you started living with me when I was pregnant by my dead boyfriend and you just sort of… stayed.”

“I can move out, if that’s…” Jane has no idea where the conversation’s going.

“And I love it.  I love you being there.  And we share a bed most nights and yeah, you did shoot me - once - but I don’t know who we are to each other.”

Jane thinks about this. “Do we have to have a name for what we are?”

Patterson goes quiet.

“Hey, if it bothers you that much, we can figure out who we are to each other,” Jane hurries to say.

“I just… I’m so _happy_ ,” Patterson splutters into the phone, sounding close to tears.

“Okay?” Jane’s completely lost.

“And I _want_ to be happy,” Patterson goes on. “I just…”

She sniffles.

“Why don’t you take a break?” Jane suggests gently. “Go play with Mo for a bit.  I’ll hang out here and watch for our guy.  If I see anything, I’ll text you.”

“Okay,” Patterson whispers.

“And Patterson?  No matter what we decide about who we are to each other… I like whoever we are a whole lot.”

“Me too.”

They hang up and Jane sits back, watching the constant flow of students.  She sees no one who resembles Gruff from the surveillance videos, though, and after a few minutes she gets bored.  Flicking through her phone she looks at goofy pictures she’s taken of herself and Mo, and then she halfheartedly plays some silly game Patterson put on her phone - a “cat collector” where the goal seems to be to attract cats to a virtual backyard and take pictures of them.

Jane loves it, but she’s not quite sure why.

At some point she looks up.  The hallway is mostly cleared out, the students off to their classes or other meetings.  In fact, there’s only one person in front of the bulletin board.

Jane can tell by the way he’s standing, from his general aura, that this is the mysterious Gruff they’ve been looking for.  Casually she stands up and approaches the board, as though she’s just realized she was looking for a flyer about the campus handcrafts fair.

She’s not expecting it, but as she stands there, next to Gruff, he starts speaking. “So you’ve found Trent.”

Jane turns towards him. “Sorry?”

It’s the wrong thing to do.  A cloth comes towards her face, nearly touching it before her brain kicks in.  She takes a step back, blocking the man’s arm away from her, trying to slam his head into the bulletin board.

He steps into the attack, ducking under her arm and wrapping his free arm around her waist, attempting to throw her to the floor.  Jane curls herself forward, using her momentum to try to flip him in front of her.

Somehow he’s canny enough to use his own momentum to do almost the opposite, and somehow she ends up on her back, wind knocked out of her, with the bearded man standing over her. “What’d you do with Trent?” he demands, holding the cloth just above her face.

“He’s… fine,” Jane wheezes. “He’s… at home.  Probably.  Probably playing… video games.”

She’s trying to figure out how she’s going to get out of this situation.  Faintly she hears her phone ringing in her pocket. “They’re going to get worried when I don’t answer that.”

“Yeah?” The man doesn’t seem convinced. “I guess we’ll worry about that later.”

He leans down with the cloth.  Jane tries to fight it, but his arms are steel bands and the cloth presses into her face.  She attempts not to breathe; the scent on the cloth is overwhelmingly heady.

The last thing she remembers is the phone, still ringing.


	7. Chapter 7

Jane blinks and squints up at the lights overhead.  Her head hurts and there’s a funny taste in her mouth.  She rolls her head to one side and finds she’s looking at a pair of sensible shoes.  This doesn’t mean much to her.  The fact that she recognizes the shoes gives her a tiny bit of hope.

“Patterson?” she groans out.

In a split second Patterson drops to her knees. “Jane.  I’m so glad…”

She looks close to tears.  Jane sits up and puts her arms around Patterson. “C’mere.  I’m just fine.”

Patterson buries her face into Jane’s neck. “I’m so sorry.”

“About what?”

“I don’t even _know_.”

Jane looks over at Weller, who’s standing next to Patterson.  He shrugs. “You did shoot her two days ago.  What happened?”

“Well, I met Gruff, and he’s about as nice as his name.  He’s also some sort of ninja - I mean, he looked so innocuous in that video we saw.” Jane rubs her forehead. “Managed to flip me like I was a rag doll.”

She sighs and touches the side of her head.  As her sleeve rides up she sees Weller lean in. “What is it?”

“Your tattoo there,” he answers, pointing to the intricate honeycomb pattern on her right hand. “Looks like our boy Gruff is more than a ninja - it seems he’s an amateur artist as well.”

Jane pulls her hand back, looking down at the tattoo.  Several of the spots are now colored in, while others have numbers in them.

“I think he left us a message,” Weller says. “Patterson, you all right?”

Patterson sniffles. “I think so.”

“Then can we get up and go solve this?”

“Yeah,” Patterson says, sounding more sure of herself. “Yeah, let’s do this.”

 

* * *

 

“We’ve catalogued everything in this place,” Zapata says, looking around Erik Tidemore’s spotless apartment. “Nothing.  What am I missing?”

Reade looks up from the bookshelf, where he’s photographing some of the thousands of action figures contained in the living room. “Other than where a guy with no work history on record managed to buy all of this stuff?”

“And why he has it all,” Zapata says.

“Technically _he_ doesn’t have anything anymore,” Reade says. “You know, since he’s technically dead.”

“I think our next best bet is his sister,” Zapata opines. “I mean, he’s been dead for awhile and she’s still paying his rent… and obviously paying someone to come in here and clean.”

“Unless she does it herself.”

Zapata turns to look at the bulletin board above the desk.  Unlike everything else in the apartment, which is an oasis of calm and neatness, everything arranged at right angles and in very specific patterns, the bulletin board is a hodgepodge of receipts, photos, pins, lists, and scribbled doodles.  Nothing matches, nothing’s the same size, and none of it fits together in any category. “What do we think of this?”

“I think it’s just a bulletin board.”

“You don’t think that a guy who sunk as much time into arranging his action figures in floor-to-ceiling glass cases with temperature control and vacuum sealing as he did wouldn’t have some sort of… system for things like this?”

“Do you want to take the board with us?  Just take the board back with us.  Patterson’ll find some pattern on it,” Reade says.  He stands up. “There’s some large evidence bags in the kit.”

In the end they take Erik Tidemore’s bulletin board, two boxes of files, and a small safe discovered under his bed.  They also take his sister Leslie’s contact information.  Reade takes a phone number from Melanie, the downstairs neighbor, and her schedule, written on a pink Post-It in swirly handwriting.   _I’m free for coffee on Thursday_.

Zapata takes great delight in this.

 

* * *

 

The on-call medic at the FBI offices offers Jane an ice pack for the back of her head before waving her out of his cubicle, clearing her to return to the chaos of the ongoing investigation.  She heads immediately back to Patterson’s lab.

Patterson has Moira in the sling against her chest as she talks animatedly to the baby. “... and this is where things get interesting.  He has a mint-in-box Captain Huckleberry - which, I know _you_ don’t know this but _I_ do - was part of an extremely limited run of two hundred action figures ever made of that character.  And fifty of those were destroyed in an unfortunate delivery truck fire back in 1985!  We’re going to check eBay to see if we can find any collectors who might have helped Mr. Tidemore with his extreme action figure hoarding, aren’t we?”

“Who’s Captain Huckleberry?” Jane asks, stepping up next to Patterson to look at the pictures on the big monitor.  One of them shows a bright yellow-and-purple box containing a superhero action figure dressed in a purple bodysuit and mask and a yellow cape and boots.  A giant yellow “H” adorns his torso.

“Oh!  Hey.  He was part of this weird cartoon series back in the eighties.  The superheroes were all fruits,” Patterson says.

Jane offers her finger to Moira to bat at. “And people watched it?”

“No.  Definitely not in the numbers they needed to keep it going,” Patterson answers. “They sure tried hard, though, with all kinds of marketing.  It’s become more of a cult hit now in the YouTube era… but the merchandise is super-rare.”

“YouTube,” Jane muses. “Do you think that’s how Gruff got in touch with Trent Rosenzweig?”

Patterson nods thoughtfully. “Could be, although I haven’t gotten deep enough into our gamer guy’s channel to find out if he has other interests besides hearing himself talk.”

Jane laughs.

“The odds are actually better that our Gruff was a fan of the original series when he was a kid, and started trying to reclaim his youth by snatching up memorabilia on eBay,” Patterson says, “but I’m not going to rule anything out yet.”

“What were Captain Huckleberry’s powers?”

“I feel like he drove the getaway car.”

“And he was the captain?”

Patterson shrugs. “None of it made sense.  Super Banana was the trickster of the group... he’d put banana peels on the ground so the rest of the High Octane Fruits could get away from people.  Orange Maiden seduced all sorts of bad guys.  Grape and Grape were twins who played switcharoo a lot, even though one was a girl and one was a guy.  Blueberry Swirl could turn into a tornado… or something like that.”

Mo lets out a coo.

“You’re right, it does sound like something someone on drugs would create,” Patterson says in response.

She pulls up eBay and starts scrolling through sales records for any High Octane Fruits memorabilia.  There aren’t many results.  Most of the items seem to be coming from a user named “lauradalton.”

“That’s weird,” Patterson says.

“What?”

“Well, I was talking to the company that invented the gelatin pouch we found in your neck, and their head of R&D is named Laura Dalton.”

“And what are the odds of it being the same person?”

“According to US Census data…” Patterson takes a few seconds to scroll through another website. “... Laura is the 57th most common first name in the US, and Dalton is the top thousand of common surnames.  Odds are, there’s less than 200 people named Laura Dalton in the entire country.”

Jane can’t follow that math, but she trusts Patterson.

“And it says on her eBay profile that she ships from New York, so…” Patterson shrugs. “We’ll track her down.”

She turns to Jane. “I need to get scans of your hand now that Gruff’s altered it.  New clues!”

Patterson sounds so delighted that Jane can’t begrudge her, and she offers up her arm to Patterson’s scanning equipment without any protest.  She’s been so comfortable with her hand’s appearance for so long that to see it now, colored and inked with new information, is a little unsettling.

Weller comes in while Patterson’s inputting the colors and numbers into the tattoo database. “Reade and Zapata are heading over to talk to Leslie Tidemore, but they brought some evidence back from the apartment.”

He sets a bulletin board on one of the work tables. “Agents McCloud and Turner have the rest of the evidence - they should be right behind me.”

His eye catches the photos up on the screen. “Is that Captain Huckleberry?”

Patterson turns towards the garishly-costumed superhero. _“You_ watched High Octane Fruits?”

“I mean, it didn’t have the appeal of the Justice League, but it was better than nothing,” Weller replies. “You know what the weirdest thing about that show was?”

“The entire thing?”

“No,” Weller says. “It was how Captain Huckleberry was the only one with a secret identity.  He was really a doctor or something.  The rest of the Fruits didn’t have day jobs, they were just superheroes.  But not Captain Huckleberry.”

His phone rings and he heads out of the lab, leaving Jane and Patterson to contemplate his analysis of Captain Huckleberry’s confusing history.  Mo sticks her fingers in her mouth and blows a raspberry towards the superhero.

“What can I do to help?” Jane asks Patterson.

Patterson considers this. “At this point it’s all a waiting game, honestly.  Oh!  Unless you wanted… no I bet you wouldn’t want to...”

She hesitates.

“What?” Jane presses her.

“I need someone to go through some of Trent Rosenzweig’s videos and compare them to the ones on the chip,” Patterson says. “I have a program that’ll line them up side-by-side, but it’s still going to be boring.”

“That’s fine with me.  I’ve had enough excitement for today,” Jane says.

She gratefully accepts one of the monitors, a pair of headphones, and a table near the back of the room to run through GamerGuy75’s videos.  Patterson explains what she’s looking for and shows Jane how to press certain keys to mark the similarities between the two videos, then lets Jane go at it.

Jane keeps her attention on the videos, but in between she looks up at Patterson, moving through the variety of clues, those twisty pathways and back alleys leading towards a solution.  Though nothing in the past few days has made much sense, Jane knows there’s no one else she wants on her side.

 

* * *

 

Leslie Tidemore’s secretary is an incredibly handsome man who gives Reade and Zapata a polite smile when they approach. “How can I help you?”

“We’re from the FBI,” Zapata says.

“We called earlier,” Reade adds.

“Oh.  Um, let me check and see if Leslie’s in.”

“It’s all right, Bernard.” A tall woman in a sharply-tailored business suit comes out of an office just behind the secretary’s immaculate desk. “I’m Leslie Tidemore.  Please, come in.”

She offers them seats in her spare steel-and-glass office. “You said you had questions about my brother’s death.”

“Your brother is a person-of-interest in an ongoing investigation,” Reade says.

“My brother’s been dead for eight years,” Leslie says flatly. “I don’t understand how he could be a suspect.”

“We have preliminary evidence that suggests he’s… not dead,” Reade tells her.  He holds out a photograph from the surveillance cameras at Weston College. “Is this your brother?”

Leslie takes the print-out. “This looks like it could be anybody.  It’s a guy with a beard in sunglasses and a hoodie.”

“We visited your brother’s apartment today,” Reade goes on. “We were surprised to find it was so tidy and… lived-in.”

“Erik was very proud of his collections,” Leslie says. “It felt wrong to just sell everything he liked so much.  I keep the place up partially as a shrine to him, which I know is selfish…”

“Everyone grieves in different ways,” Zapata says.

“... and sometimes I’m able to let friends and family stay there when they visit, or I can rent it out,” Leslie goes on. “I like knowing that someone’s there.  Makes Erik seem a little closer.”

She hands the photograph back to Reade. “What kind of investigation do you think Erik’s involved in?”

“Did he know a man by the name of Trent Rosenzweig?” Reade asks.

“Not that I know of.”

“Was he a fan of online video games?”

“Erik had a lot of passions.  If it was nerdy or geeky or strange or just plain out there, he’d probably looked into it,” Leslie says. “He used to buy moon rocks off eBay until he read an article about how a lot of them were stolen from universities around the country.  Then he mailed them back to their respective institutions.  He was… _invested_ in a lot of different things, I guess you could say.”

“Did he hold stock in or have any connections to a company called Brilliant Horizons Medical?”

“I don’t think so.  I can look into some of his records, but… I’ve never heard of them.”

“You said he used eBay,” Zapata says. “Do you know what his username was?”

Leslie thinks about this. “He had a couple.  Not just on eBay but for different websites… when he played World of Warcraft his character was called ‘Kire’ - that’s Erik backwards.  Maybe on eBay he was ‘etidemore’... that sounds familiar.  Other than that, I don’t know.  I’d have to check his records.”

She shifts in her office chair. “This man in the photo you showed me… is he involved in something dangerous?  Do I need to be worried?”

Reade shakes his head. “Right now we’re just interested in finding this man to ask him some questions about an ongoing investigation.  Your brother’s name came up when we spoke to another person-of-interest.”

“This is going to sound ridiculous, but have you received any strange letters, emails, packages… anything like that?” Zapata asks. “Anything anonymous you couldn’t trace?”

“I’m a criminal defense lawyer,” Leslie says, rolling her eyes. “I get a lot of strange letters and emails.  And phone calls.  And in-person harassments.  Most of them anonymous.”

Her face softens. “But nothing comes to mind that would make me think of Erik.  Honestly, I feel the closest to him when I’m in his apartment.”

Reade and Zapata share a glance.  Zapata speaks first. “We’re sorry for your loss.  Thank you for your assistance with this.”

“I’m not sure how much help I was,” Leslie says. “I hope you find the man you’re looking for.”

Reade passes her a card. “If you think of anything else, or something shows up that makes you go ‘huh,’ will you give us a call?”

Leslie tucks the card into the corner of her desk blotter. “Sure.”

 

* * *

 

In the car, heading back to the office, Zapata turns to Reade. “Did you buy any of that?”

“She seemed like a nice lady.”

“What kind of lady keeps her brother’s apartment the same way it’s always been, eight years after his death?”

“She gave some pretty good reasons.  Maybe they were the kind of siblings who were super-close.  It looks like she’s wealthy - if she wants to keep a toy-filled apartment as a guest house, who are we to judge?” Reade shrugs.

“I’d rather sleep in my Aunt Rosa’s basement than that apartment,” Zapata informs him, “and she has so many mice that she’s named them all and given them personalities and voices.”

“What’s wrong with that apartment?”

“All those beady action-figure eyes watching you?”

“It’s only spooky if they move.”

Zapata shudders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on Tumblr as memorysdaughter.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea if this chapter is longer or shorter than the previous one, and at this point I'm so happy to be writing again that I don't really care.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who supports this story through kudos and reviews. I love hearing from any and all of my readers.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr as memorysdaughter.

At last the videos end.  Jane stands up from the computer, takes her headphones off, and rolls her head back and forth, trying to loosen her stiff body.  She has no idea how Patterson deals with leaning over computers all day; it’s tedious.

The woman in question is in the back of the lab, curled up on the newest piece of furniture - a recliner - with the baby on her chest.  Mo lets out soft snores as Jane approaches.  Patterson looks over at her, exhaustion in her expression. “I really want to get up and go home,” she says quietly. “But I’m too tired.”

“Just take a nap,” Jane says. “I should go check in with the rest of the team.”

Patterson nods.

“Do you need anything?”

“Can I have…” Patterson’s eyes close for a brief second, and her head dips towards her chest.  Then she jerks upright. “Sorry.  Can I have a pain pill and some water?”

Jane retrieves those for her.  Patterson shifts Moira on her chest in order to take the medication.  Once it’s swallowed down, she hands Jane the water bottle, her eyes already closing.

“Sleep for a bit,” Jane says. “When I come back, we’ll go home.”

“Mm-hmm,” Patterson murmurs.

Jane bends down and presses a kiss to the top of Patterson’s head.  There’s a slight smile on Patterson’s lips as Jane leaves the lab.

Weller, Reade, and Zapata are gathered in Mayfair’s office.  They greet her, a variety of expressions on their faces; overall they seem to be tired, though, just like Jane feels.

“How’d the rest of your day turn out?” Weller asks her.

“I did a bunch of Patterson work,” she answers. “It was boring and my neck is all tight.  You?”

“We followed up on some of our other leads,” Zapata says. “Erik Tidemore’s sister is a criminal defense attorney who, from all appearances, just really misses her brother.”

“Zapata thinks she’s nuts for keeping her brother’s apartment all pristine,” Reade puts in, “but she shows no other bizarre tendencies.”

“So we have nothing,” Jane says.  She rubs the back of her neck. “Ugh.  I need a workout and a shower.  And then something terrible to eat.”

“I’d be down for that,” Zapata says. “What’s Patterson up to?”

“Sleeping, hopefully,” Jane answers. “She works too hard.”

“I could say the same about anyone in this room,” Reade says. “Forget that workout stuff - we should go out.”

“It’s Tuesday,” Zapata says.

“So?”

Zapata just grins.

“We can do _all_ of it,” Jane says.

“Some of us can, Wonder Woman,” Weller says. “Some of us have to finish reports.”

There’s a knock at the door and Mayfair’s latest assistant, a young man named Charlie, sticks his head in. “There’s a woman here who somehow got through security downstairs and says she needs to talk to, and I quote, ‘the assholes who put a lock on my eBay account.’”

“Sounds charming,” Weller says.

“Wait,” Jane says. “What’s her name?”

Charlie looks down at his tablet. “Laura Dalton.”

“Let her in,” Jane says.

Her coworkers look at her, confused.

“She may have had a connection with Erik Tidemore,” Jane explains, “and if it’s the woman I’m thinking of, she works for the medical supply company whose tech ended up in my neck.  I’m sure Patterson’s got at least a few questions for her.”

“I don’t care what you do with her, but she needs to be _not_ my problem,” Charlie says.

“Send her in,” Weller says.  Charlie nods and ducks back out into the corridor.

“I’ll go check on Patterson,” Jane offers.

“Yeah, get her in here.  She actually knows what’s going on with this woman, whereas -”

The door bangs open and a dark-haired woman in a lime-green sweater barges into the office. “Where the _fuck_ do you people get off?” she demands.

“Well, that’s not a loaded question,” Reade mutters.

“Excuse me,” Jane says, and slips around the angry woman, hurrying down the hallway to Patterson’s lab.

Moira is fussing on Patterson’s chest; Patterson is deeply asleep, her mouth open slightly.  Jane scoops up the baby. “Hey, now, none of that,” she murmurs to Mo, bringing the baby up to her shoulder and bouncing her slightly.

Mo’s whimpers slow and at last stop; she snuggles into Jane’s neck, contentedly sucking her fingers.  Jane leans down. “Patterson,” she whispers. “I need you to wake up.”

“Nnn,” Patterson says distantly.

“There’s work to be done.”

“Hmm,” Patterson answers.  She shifts in the chair and her eyes flicker. “Tired.”

“I know,” Jane says, “and I’m sorry, but Laura Dalton just barged in here.”

At that Patterson’s eyes go wide open. “What?”

“Apparently she believes the FBI shut down her eBay account.”

Patterson retracts the footrest of the recliner and practically bolts to her feet. “That was fast.”

“Did we shut down her eBay account?”

“Of course not.  That would be ridiculous.”

“Oh.” Jane feels silly.

“We put a temporary ban on it,” Patterson goes on. “I wanted to see if I could lure out the correct Laura Dalton.  If this is the woman who works for Brilliant Horizons, I’ll know it in a few seconds.”

“And if not?”

“Then we have a woman named Laura Dalton who’s connected to Erik Tidemore,” Patterson says. “Feels like a win either way.”

She stops abruptly. “Where’s…?”

Jane turns to show her Mo.

“Oh, good.” Patterson still looks a bit frazzled, though.  Jane reaches out and touches her shoulder.

“Just get through this, and we’ll go home.”

Patterson nods tiredly. “I just want to sleep.”

She sighs, squares her shoulders, grabs her tablet, and heads out into the hallway.

“She’s too wonderful, your mom,” Jane says to Mo.

Mo sucks her fingers and drools on Jane’s neck.  It seems like tacit agreement.

 

* * *

 

Patterson enters Mayfair’s office to find a woman in a lime-green sweater nearly breathing down Weller’s neck.

“... as I said, Ms. Dalton, I will -”

“I’m done with you and your government excuses!  I want to speak to someone in charge!”

“Ms. Dalton?” Patterson steps forward.

The woman whirls, and Patterson knows immediately this isn’t Laura Dalton of Brilliant Horizons Medical.  This woman is older, and her voice lacks the slight British accent of the research-and-development professional Patterson spoke with earlier.  However, this is _a_ woman named Laura Dalton, concerned about an eBay account, and she’s here.

“Are you in charge?” the woman demands.

“I’m the head of forensic tech,” Patterson says, for lack of a better explanation. “I hear you have some concerns about your eBay account.”

“You’re damn right I do.”

“Could you answer some questions for me, first, so I can verify your identity before we look into your account?”

This stops the woman in her tracks. “Oh.  Well, yeah, I suppose I can.”

“Let’s sit down,” Patterson suggests, less because she wants to make the meeting a little more focused and more because she feels like she’s going to pass out on her feet.  If she sways a little bit as she moves towards the conference table, Laura Dalton doesn’t seem to notice it.

Weller does, though, and he grabs her by the elbow, holding her upright. “You okay?” he murmurs, _sotto voce_.

Patterson nods. “Let’s just get this over with.”

Once they’re seated, Patterson flicks on her tablet. “You said your name is Laura Dalton, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have a middle initial?”

“N.”

“Can you give me your home address?  And your phone number?”

Laura rattles off those details and Patterson inputs them into her tablet’s program.  An alert pops up on the screen and she looks over at Weller.  He comes over, and they turn away from the woman on the opposite side of the table. “What is it?”

“Her phone number matches a note we found on the bulletin board we removed from Erik Tidemore’s apartment,” Patterson says.

“Ask her about it.”

Patterson turns back to Laura. “Did you know a man named Erik Tidemore?”

Laura looks confused. “What’s that have to do with my eBay account?”

“You might have known him from eBay,” Patterson says. “His eBay account was under ‘etidemore.’  He bought a lot of High Octane Fruits memorabilia.”

“That was a weird show,” Laura says.

“I agree, but that’s not important.  Did you know Mr. Tidemore?”

“I sell to a lot of people,” Laura responds. “I inherited two whole houses full of shit - one from my father, and one from my father-in-law.  Both of my parents were hoarders, and after Larry’s mom died, his dad went off the rails.  We took most of the stuff to the Goodwill, but there’s still a bunch of weird, more selective items that end up on eBay.”

“Would you be willing to look through your account and see if there’s any communication from Mr. Tidemore?”

“Well, here’s the thing,” Laura says, leaning forward and smiling. “You’d have to give me access back first, and once I’ve got that, I’d say there’s no guarantee I’ll stick around and help you.”

Patterson leans back in her chair. “You know we can just get a warrant, right?”

Laura shrugs. “Doesn’t make much of a difference to me, at this point.”

“Well, thanks for your help,” Patterson says. “I think we’re done here.”

Weller takes over. “Someone in our tech department will get in touch once we’re finished with your account.”

Laura Dalton looks aghast from face to face. “That’s it?”

“If you don’t want to cooperate, we don’t require you to stay here any longer,” Weller says, watching as Patterson slumps back in her chair. “Charlie can escort you back downstairs.”

Laura stands up, pointing an accusing finger in Patterson’s direction. “You did this!  Give me my account back!”

Weller steps between Laura and Patterson. “I think that’s enough for today, Mrs. Dalton.”

He nods at Zapata, who flanks them. “Agent Zapata will return you to Charlie, and they’ll make sure you leave the building.  We’ll contact you when our investigation has finished.”

Laura goes, but over her shoulder she calls out, “You’re going to regret this, blondie!”

Weller looks back at Patterson to see if she’s unnerved by Laura’s statement, but Patterson’s eyes are closed, her breathing soft and even.

He smiles faintly as he scoops Patterson out of her chair.  She nestles against him.

Weller finds Jane rocking Mo back and forth in the hallway.  She looks alarmed when she sees Patterson in his arms. “What happened with Laura Dalton?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary for a disgruntled person of interest,” Weller answers. “I think she’s just overtired.”

“Let’s go home,” Jane says, to both Weller, and Moira, and isn’t surprised when both of them agree in their own ways.

 

* * *

 

Patterson wakes, the light low around her.  Her brain still muddled with sleep, she rolls to one side.  Jane lays next to her, asleep, mouth open slightly.  The baby monitor is on the bedside table on Jane’s other side, and Patterson hears the soft ocean of Moira’s breathing.  The room is warm and she’s under the covers, curled up next to Jane.

She’s going to close her eyes again, just for a minute…

When she wakes again she knows it’s been hours, since the light is different in the room, and Jane’s up, sitting in the rocking chair across the room, feeding Mo a bottle.  Patterson tries not to move, just listening to the conversation Jane’s having with her daughter.

“... and we spent the next seven weeks together, just hanging out.  We did a lot of puzzles.  We watched ‘Wheel of Fortune.’  You can watch that show when you’re a little older, hmm?  I gave your mom a lot of back rubs - you were a heavy thing in her little body.  You should’ve seen her belly by the end, Mo, it was huge.”

Mo slurps away at the bottle, one hand waving up towards Jane in excitement.

“I _do_ remember the day you were born, thanks for asking,” Jane goes on. “Your momma was the bravest woman I’ve ever seen… and we work with a bunch of badasses.  Don’t tell her I used that language, even though she uses worse around you.”

Mo considers this, looking right up at Jane.

“She was cursing and swearing and then…” Jane’s voice gets soft and wistful. “And then… she was in some sort of trance, and she was absolutely gorgeous.  She’s always beautiful, Mo, just like you, but… she was the most gorgeous I’ve ever seen her in the moment she became your momma.”

Patterson’s heart swells with happiness and tears flood her eyes.  Her shoulder wound throbs and her chest aches with unused breast milk, but above that, all she feels is safe, and whole, and loved.

She’s going to close her eyes again, just for another minute…

 

* * *

 

Jane gets to Moira as soon as the baby starts whimpering.  She changes Mo’s diaper and puts on fresh clothes before carrying Mo back into the bedroom.

“Hey,” Jane says softly, touching Patterson’s shoulder. “The little lady here took a bottle last night, but I think she might want the real stuff this morning.”

“Hmm?” Patterson rolls towards her, eyes still closed.

Jane lays Mo down next to her mother.  Looking adorable in a soft pink-and-green sweatsuit outfit, Mo gurgles contentedly.  A smile crosses Patterson’s face and she opens her eyes. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” Jane says. “Someone’s hungry.”

“You know where the food is,” Patterson says mildly, but she looks up at Jane with mischief in her eyes as she sits up, scooping Mo into her arms. “Hi, lovey.”

Moira looks up at her mother and lets out a pathetic series of whimpers.

“All right, all right,” Patterson says.  She cradles Mo against her to nurse.

The bedroom is quiet for a few minutes until Patterson’s phone rings from the other room. “And just when I thought we could have a nice quiet Saturday.”

“You didn’t sleep _that_ long,” Jane says with a grin. “It’s still only Wednesday.”

She grabs Patterson’s phone from the kitchen table and returns it.

“Hello?” Patterson listens for a few beats. “Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty significant.  Is Weller in?” A beat. “Okay, let him know, and get the rest of the op up on the maps.  I’ll expect a full run-down when we get in.” Another few beats. “Forty-five minutes, Jeremy.  Jeez, I can’t just bolt down to the office in my pajamas.”

She hangs up on the caller and looks over at Jane.

“Don’t be too hard on him,” Jane says. “The way you work those guys, I don’t think Jeremy actually goes home anymore.”

Patterson gives her a rueful smile. “Someday they’ll thank me.”

“What did Jeremy have to report?”

“He went through the video comparisons you did yesterday, and he’s pretty sure he’s got a location for the bunker filled with those kidnapped women and children in those pictures we got off the disc in your neck.”


	9. Chapter 9

“It’s called Barrel Falls, and the building resembles their abandoned bread factory,” Jeremy says proudly.

“Barrel Falls,” Weller says. “Why does that sound familiar?”

"Ten years ago the FBI caught a serial killer hiding out there,” Jeremy offers.

“Last year they had a Cadillac festival and a man died after eating sixteen funnel cakes,” Reade puts in.

Weller raises his eyebrows. “So, an exciting place despite the name.”

Zapata turns to Reade. “How do you know that thing about the funnel cakes?”

“I read stuff,” he mutters.

“Were you _there?”_ she prods.

“Maybe.”

Jeremy looks between them. “So, anyway, their bread factory has been abandoned for a few years, and it’s up on a hill above the town.  There’s no guards, and there’s a back way up to the factory that can’t be seen from the town itself.  Even real estate agents have given up - no one wants to buy a bread factory.”

“How did you figure this out?” Patterson asks, scrolling through the images on one of the monitors.

Jeremy turns. “Oh!  Well, going back through the images of the abducted individuals, we kept seeing this repeated symbol in all of them.”

He points to the left corner of the images as Patterson flips through them.  A decal, wall marking, or small sign is evident, featuring a stylized loaf of bread with several letters intertwined within. “This represents the Bread Makers’ Union of America.”

“Such a thing exists?” Zapata asks skeptically.

“I didn’t believe it either,” Jeremy says, “but I looked it up.”

“Why would they be so careless as to leave that in every single picture?” Jane leans forward to see the symbol in one corner of the picture on the screen.

“How did you find out it was in Barrel Falls?” Weller wants to know.

“We spotted a large commercial oven in one of the photos,” Jeremy says. “Alison noticed it had a brand name we hadn’t heard of in awhile - McFarley.  We researched it and found out they’re out of business now, but some of the last ovens they sold went to the Barrel Falls bread factory.  We weren’t able to get the serial numbers from that blurry image, but…”

“Great job, Jeremy,” Patterson says.

The tech looks stunned.

“Go get some juice or something.”

Now the tech looks suspicious. “Are you… sure?”

“Yeah.  Find out what everybody wants from Fruit Whirled.  I’ll buy.”

Jeremy’s eyes light up and he runs off to the back of the lab.

“What happened to _you?”_ Zapata asks, grinning at Patterson. “Do you have a heart in there?”

Patterson smiles, stroking Moira’s head as the baby sleeps against her. “Somewhere.  Also, I love smoothies from Fruit Whirled.”

Weller looks at the rest of the team. “I guess our next move is pretty clear.”

“Let’s go get baked,” Reade says.

Zapata, Jane, and Patterson turn to look at him; Weller frowns.

“I’m _kidding_ ,” Reade says. “Jeez.  It was the best pun I could come up with at the time!”

They leave, Patterson putting in her earpiece to follow along with the mission.  Jeremy returns with a hastily-scrawled list of juice and smoothie preferences.  Patterson adds her own and sends him and Alison off together.  She’s convinced there’s something between the two and is attempting to, in the least creepy ways possible, put them together for assignments to see if anything comes of it.

Maybe she’s creepy.

“I’m not creepy, am I, Mo?” Patterson whispers to her daughter as she pulls up the maps of the Barrel Falls bread factory.

Mo sleeps on, which is neither positive nor negative in Patterson’s mind.

 

* * *

 

“We’ve got paramedics on standby,” Patterson says in Weller’s ear as the teams approach the two separate entrances to the bread factory. “We’ve also got local LEOs on the ground as well ready to provide backup support if necessary.”

“On my three, everybody,” Weller says.

He gets back responses from Zapata’s team and Reade’s team.  Everyone’s ready to go.

“Patterson, can you see us?” Jane murmurs into her coms.

“Yep, got eyes,” Patterson replies.  The team’s been testing out a new series of cameras to give their missions better oversight from those running the missions from the other end.  Jane usually volunteers to wear one, to the delight of Patterson and the utter disgust of two members of her team with sensitive stomachs.  Watching from Jane’s perspective as fights go down is a spectator sport along the lines of _The Blair Witch Project_.  Patterson finds it fascinating.

“One… two… three,” Weller intones, and the coms fill with the noises of doors slamming open and shouts from the other team members - _Clear!  Clear!_

“Patterson, can you give us a likely location for the hostages?” Zapata asks.

Patterson quickly confers with Jeremy, then reports, “Your best bet is the largest kitchen… or baking facility, I guess, since it’s too big to be a kitchen.  Maximum people storage while remaining as insulated from the outside as possible.”

“Got it.”

Weller gives a flick of his finger to the team and they move forward. “We’ll take it room by room,” he says.

They make their way through the bread factory, surprising a few rats and finding a few cases of very old, very stale crackers.  At last Reade’s team reports they’ve found the baking room. “Opening the door.”

Weller, Jane, and their team round the corner just as one of the agents slams the portable battering ram into the door.  Immediately there are screams from the darkened interior of the room.  Jane makes her way in and she hears Patterson let out a low curse in her ear. “They’re here.  They’re all here.”

“Get the EMTs in here,” Weller barks at one of the other team members, who leans into his shoulder-mounted mic to make the call.

Jane moves over towards the group of children, kneeling down in front of them. “It’s all right,” she says, trying to speak calmly and quietly. “You’re safe now, we’re here to help you.”

A little boy, not much more than skin and bones, leans forward. “Are you my mommy now?” he asks, his voice raspy.

“No, sweetheart.  We’re going to take you home to your mommy,” Jane answers. “I promise.”

“Will you hug me?” one of the little girls asks.

Jane just leans forward and hugs her.  She feels the girl’s shoulders shake in silent sobs.  Other children come up and put their hands on the girl’s back, offering quiet comfort.  It is the most heartbreaking thing Jane’s ever experienced, and she can tell from the almost-but-not-silent noises coming from Patterson’s end of the coms that it’s not easy to watch from afar, either.

Weller moves towards some of the young women, and is unsurprised when they shrink away from him.  Zapata sees it, and steps in front of him.  The other female members of the team accompany her.

Reade returns, having been in the corridor to show the EMTs the way into the baking room.  Once they’re assisting the captives, Reade returns to Weller’s side. “What now?”

“Are there any clues in here?”

“We saw the photos on the disc in Jane’s neck,” Patterson reminds them, sounding only a little like someone who has recently stopped crying. “And our gamer guy was holding a newspaper showing a recent date, but it didn’t seem like he’d been in the bunker at the time.”

“But he told us about Gruff,” Reade says. “Who we believe to be Erik Tidemore.”

“Who may or may not be connected to a woman on the team making the gelatin that covered the disc,” Weller adds.

“What’s the endgame here for Gruff?  Is he trying to solve his own murder?” Patterson muses.

“I think we need to figure out how these women and children are connected, if they’re connected at all, to the gamer guy and Erik Tidemore,” Jane says, coming to stand near Weller and Reade.

“And what did the gamer guy have to gain out of all of this?  Why would he follow Gruff?”

“And _is_ Gruff Erik Tidemore?” Patterson sighs. “Too many questions.”

“We’ll get back to the office and start figuring things out,” Weller says.

“Guys?  Good job,” Patterson says.

Jane looks over at the children, still being carried out of the baking room by the EMTs and the other team members. “Yeah.  This might only be a small part of the whole mystery, but… this feels pretty good.”

 

* * *

 

Patterson’s napping when they return from Barrel Falls, and Mo’s in with Mayfair, sitting up in her bouncer.  Mo lets out a happy chuckle as Mayfair tickles her belly.

“Welcome back,” Mayfair greets them. “I’m glad to hear about your successful endeavors out in Barrel Falls.  There was an interesting phone call while you were gone.”

She hands Weller a memo. “From Leslie Tidemore.”

Zapata leans over his shoulder. “Interesting.”

“Share with the class,” Reade says mildly, reaching in to chuck Mo under the chin.

“She neglected to tell us that she has video surveillance set up at her brother’s apartment… which I suppose we didn’t need to know about.  But she says there’s something interesting on the footage from last night.”

 

* * *

 

Leslie Tidemore is waiting at the door of her offices when Weller and Zapata appear.  Her assistant is gone.  The attorney looks tense and a little nervous, but she manages to greet them politely. “Can I offer you anything to drink?”

“No, thank you,” Weller says, and Zapata demurs as well.

“I called your office earlier because I went over the footage from the security cameras at my brother’s apartment,” Leslie says. “I admit I kept the knowledge of the cameras from you, but you have to understand that I thought there was literally _no_ chance of my brother being alive.”

“But I’m guessing you saw something that’s making you change your mind,” Zapata says.

Leslie nods, and she ushers them into her private office. “I had them installed after there were some burglaries in the neighborhood last year.  I know this must sound ridiculous - a woman keeping her brother’s apartment physically intact after her death is so worried about his possessions that he’s never coming back for…” 

“People grieve in different ways,” Weller tells her. “You don’t have to apologize.”

Leslie takes this in, and something in her shoulders relaxes.  She picks up a tablet and turns it towards Weller and Zapata. “Here’s what showed up last night.”

They watch a few seconds of a night-vision view of the apartment’s living room, nothing moving, and then one of the floorboards pops up and a head appears.  Over the next several seconds, an entire body shoves its way up from beneath the floor.  The individual then hauls up a backpack from beneath the floorboards and starts rummaging through it.

The next eight minutes of the footage show the individual - clad in some sort of khaki dungaree jumpsuit, a balaclava, gloves, and a headlamp of the type favored by campers and rock climbers - moving from case to case in the apartment, looking in at the action figures and collectibles.  At one point the individual presses a combination into the lock on the glass case’s door, and opens the case, removing a single action figure.  Then they kneel down and remove a smaller protective case from the backpack, carefully placing the figure inside it before putting it back into the backpack.

Following that gentle burglary, they close the large case and turn to look at the desk area of the apartment.  They seem confused by something; their head tilts.

“They’re looking for the bulletin board,” Zapata whispers.

Weller nods.

Not seeing what they were looking for, the individual takes the backpack and puts it down back through the floorboard hole.  They then crawl through the hole themselves and replace the floorboard from below.

The entire thing took less than twelve minutes.

“I’m kind of impressed,” Weller says.

“Totally a spy movie move,” Zapata agrees.

“We have the bulletin board at our office,” Weller tells Leslie.

“I thought as much.”

“Do you know what action figure they took?”

“I went over there this morning,” Leslie answers. “I had a schematic of Erik’s collection at my house, and I took that with me… it was a one-of-a-kind piece, commissioned from an artist friend of Erik’s in California.  Scarlet Witch.”

Weller nods and writes that down.

“Do you have any idea who would know the combination for that case?” Zapata asks.

“There’s only two people,” Leslie says. “Erik… or his girlfriend.”

 

* * *

 

Jane leans down and kisses Patterson’s forehead. “Hey.”

“Hmm,” Patterson says sleepily.

Jane gently puts Moira on her mother’s chest.  Moira, half-asleep herself, immediately curls into a little ball, nuzzling up against Patterson’s neck.

“Hi,” Patterson says, a little more clearly, and her eyes open. “It was a pretty great rescue.”

“It was,” Jane agrees softly.

“Heartbreaking, too, though,” Patterson says.

Jane nods.

“Did they find all of the kids’ parents?”

“They were still working on getting people down to the hospital, the last I heard.  But ten or twelve out of fifteen… that’s not too bad,” Jane says. “The rest will be with their families by tomorrow morning.”

“Good,” Patterson whispers.  She strokes Moira’s head.

“Kids are too vulnerable,” Jane murmurs.  She sits down on a stool near Patterson’s recliner.

“That’s why we love them,” Patterson says. “Scientifically, we’re programmed to want to protect adorable things.”

Jane’s face splits into a lopsided grin.

“What?” Patterson asks.

“That must be why I like you so much.”

“That is the most ridiculous thing I think I’ve ever heard you say.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

“No, no, it doesn’t.” Patterson gives Jane a small smile. “And it doesn’t mean I don’t like hearing you say it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Find me on Tumblr as memorysdaughter.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long. I'm a hardcore Blindspot fan, I live-tweet the episodes every week, and yet somehow I find myself writing only Critical Role fanfic for the longest periods of time. I hope you're all not too upset!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who sticks around for this, and leaves kudos and reviews. You're all fantastic!

Weller and Zapata go to see Erik Tidemore’s girlfriend, Elizabeth.  She’s a preschool teacher who agrees to meet with them during the first recess of the day.  She meets them at the door of Little Barrow School, and shows them into the teachers’ lounge.

Zapata studies the woman as Weller prepares his questions.  Elizabeth is short, with shiny dark hair.  She’s dressed comfortably in a shirtwaist dress decorated with pencils, apples, letters, and numbers.  She looks a little apprehensive, but puts a reassuring smile on her face as they sit down across from her.  Zapata decides Elizabeth is probably a great teacher.

“Good morning,” Weller says. “Thank you for meeting with us so early.”

“Thank you for coming all this way,” Elizabeth says. “You mentioned on the phone this was something about Erik?”

“Yes,” Weller says. “While working on an unrelated case, we came across information that led us to Mr. Tidemore’s murder case.  During our investigation, we received a phone call from Erik’s sister, who said that she… had some video footage we needed to see.”

He motions to Zapata, who takes out her tablet.  Weller shows the surveillance footage from Erik’s apartment to Elizabeth, who watches it with a solemn, somewhat sad, expression on her face.

“I’m sorry,” she says, when the video is over. “I just… I haven’t seen Erik’s apartment in so long.  Even on this video, it still makes me… miss him.”

“It’s all right,” Zapata says.

“When we spoke to Leslie, she said that only two people would know the code to enter that case - Erik, or you.  So I want to ask you, straight out - were you in Erik’s apartment on Tuesday night?”

“No,” Elizabeth says. “I was at parent conferences.  I was here all night, until about eight o’clock.  I saw parents from three-thirty until seven-thirty, and then I worked for a half hour with another teacher on the Halloween program.”

“Can we get some names and contact information to verify that?” Weller asks.

“Of course,” Elizabeth says. “I’ll… give you that before you leave.”

“Do you know of anyone else who would have access to Erik’s collectible cases?” Zapata pulls the tablet back towards her.

Elizabeth thinks about this. “Unless someone changed the codes… no.  It was just me and him.”

“Did you live there with him?”

She nods. “Yes, for about a year.  We’d talked about getting our own place together, but… it didn’t happen.”

“Do you know how easy it would be to change the codes on a door like that?”

“I don’t have any idea.  I’m not good with computers.  That was Erik’s area of expertise.  I just liked helping him arrange all the collectibles.  He said I had an eye for color and form,” Elizabeth says.

“Did you have any particular connection to the statue that was taken?”

“I like Scarlet Witch, but no, that particular statue isn’t one of mine.”

“Wait.  You still have action figures there?”

“They were _our_ figurines, I guess,” Elizabeth says with a shrug.

“Didn’t you want them back?” Zapata asks.

“Leslie was… she was really broken up after Erik died.  I didn’t want to intrude on her grief by asking for things back,” Elizabeth answers. “And it’s just been too long.”

“I’m sure she’d be glad to talk to you,” Weller says. “She spoke very fondly of you earlier.”

Elizabeth smiles. “I really liked Leslie.  It would be nice to talk to her again.”

“Leslie mentioned that the statue was commissioned specifically for Erik.  Do you know if it had any great value?”

“Just to him,” Elizabeth says.

“Can you think of anyone who would want to take it?  For any reason?”

“The only people who knew how much those things meant to him were me and his sister,” Elizabeth says. “And since Leslie has access to the apartment… and I wouldn’t ever steal anything from Erik, even now that he’s gone… I can’t really comprehend why anyone would take anything from there.”

“Did you and Erik have friends we could get in touch with, just to see if they might have information?” Weller asks.

Elizabeth nods. “There were a few couples we were friendly with, and he had some guys from work who formed, like, a boys’ gang.  They would go to conventions together.  I can get you their contact info.”

“Great,” Weller says.  He hands her a card. “If there’s anything else you think of that might help us, we’d really appreciate it.”

Elizabeth takes the card and looks up at Weller. “What do you think the odds are, of finding his killer, this long after the murder?”

“I can’t really say,” Weller replies. “We’re not even sure if this will lead to any conclusion to Erik’s case, but we want to follow all our leads.”

“And the other case?  The one you were working on when you found out it was tied to Erik?”

Weller, thinking of the rescue from the bread factory, can only say, “We made some very impressive progress on it yesterday.”

“Well, that’s good.  If Erik and what happened to him could be helpful to someone in any way, I think I might feel a little better about it,” Elizabeth says. “I miss him so much.  Every day.  He was… so kind.  So generous.  Such a wonderful man.  I loved him.”

“We’re sorry for your loss,” Zapata tells her, and touches her hand gently.

“Thank you,” Elizabeth says, and she smiles.

The bell rings, and the hallway fills with the sound of children laughing and running.  It sounds joyful, and it’s somewhat refreshing as Weller and Zapata leave to head back to the world of murder and deception.

 

* * *

 

Jane struggles to wake Patterson; not even the crying baby rouses Patterson from slumber.  Jane puts her hand to Patterson’s forehead and finds it blazing with heat. “Hey, c’mon,” she says, shaking Patterson.

“Hmm,” Patterson says distantly.

Mo, clinging to Jane’s shirt, lets out an indignant howl.

“Shh, shh, it’s all right,” Jane says, and she puts Mo against her shoulder. “Patterson, open your eyes, okay?”

“Hmm,” Patterson says again, and sluggishly she tries.  Her eyes crack open and she immediately recoils from the light. “No…”

“Focus on me,” Jane says. “How do you feel?”

“... hurts,” Patterson says, and she puts her hand over her eyes.

Jane quickly goes into the living room and puts Mo in the swing, turning it on.  Mo cries for a few more seconds and then relaxes into the swing’s gentle motions.  Jane goes back into the bedroom.  Patterson’s eyes are closed again.

“Patterson, this might hurt,” Jane says, and she reaches for Patterson’s shoulder.  She tugs down the T-shirt Patterson wore to bed and starts carefully removing the gauze and tape covering the bullet wound.

 _“No,”_ Patterson moans, and she tries to push herself away from Jane.

“I think your wound might be infected,” Jane says. “I need to take a look at it.”

 _“No,”_ Patterson repeats, and gets one hand up to feebly slap at Jane.

Patterson’s entire body is pulsing with heat, and when Jane gets the bandaging off, she sees the source of that boiling throbbing - the shoulder wound is bright red, seeping drainage, with reddish streaks emanating from it.  Combined with Patterson’s lethargy, it’s a very serious situation.

“Patterson, open your eyes for me,” Jane says, a little louder than before.

“I’m just… a little… tired,” Patterson says, and tries to pull the covers back up over her.

Jane grabs her phone from the bedside table and dials Weller. “Hey, got a situation here.”

“What’s up?”

“Patterson’s… distinctly out of it.  Her wound looks infected.  I need to get her to a hospital.”

“We can be there in five minutes,” Weller says. “We were just on our way back from interviewing Erik Tidemore’s former girlfriend.”

“Okay.  I’ll get the baby ready.”

“Five minutes,” Weller says, and he hangs up.

Jane scoops Moira out of the swing, changes her, and despite hearing Patterson’s usual protestations in her head, sticks a pacifier in Moira’s mouth.  She slings Moira into her car seat carrier and turns back to Patterson. “Hey, come on,” Jane says, and gently slaps Patterson’s cheek. “Open your eyes.”

“Hmm,” Patterson says.

There’s a knock at the front door, and Jane hurries over to admit Weller and Zapata. “Hey,” she greets them briefly.

“Patterson?” Weller says.  Jane indicates the bedroom.

Zapata takes Moira. “I’ll hang out with Mo,” she says. “You just worry about Patterson.”

Weller has Patterson up in his arms and back out in the corridor before Jane can even process what’s happening.  She sees Patterson’s head lolling against Weller’s arm and panic seizes her.

“Jane,” Weller says, his voice steady. “She’s going to need some clothes, and her ID.  Things like that.”

“I’ll get that,” Jane says.  Her lips feel rubbery and her movements are strange and wooden.  Somehow she goes around the apartment, filling a backpack.

Weller nods at her. “Okay.  Ready?”

“Is she…?”

“She’s still breathing,” Weller says, which is somehow worse than anything Jane could come up with.

She’s not sure how she’s still upright as they leave the apartment.

 

* * *

 

Zapata walks in with Mo’s carrier to find Reade and Mayfair in Patterson’s lab. “Where is everybody?” she asks them.

“Jeremy came down with the stomach flu and somehow passed it around the entire place,” Mayfair says. “We sent them all home.”

“How’d you end up with the baby?” Reade asks.

“Weller’s on his way to the ER with Patterson and Jane,” Zapata says.  She sets Mo on top of the closest table, letting the carrier rock gently as the sleeping baby sighs. “Patterson went unresponsive this morning.”

“What?” Mayfair turns.

“Yeah,” Zapata says. “We were on our way back from talking to Elizabeth Baer.”

“Did you get anything from her?”

“A list of names - Erik’s friends,” Zapata says. “And the feeling that she truly misses him.”

“Think of how shocked she’s going to be when she finds out he might still be alive,” Reade says.

“Oh, yeah, we definitely didn’t go into _that,”_ Zapata says. “Hey, did we ever get anything off the bulletin board from Erik’s apartment?”

“Not yet,” Mayfair says. “That’s what Jeremy and Alison were working on before… the illness hit.”

“That’s what it looked like our mysterious action-figure-stealing thief was after in the video,” Zapata says. “Sure wish we could figure it out.”

“We may not be Jeremy and Alison… or Patterson, but we can give it a shot,” Reade says.

“You two get to work.  I’m going to call Agent Weller and see if he needs anything,” Mayfair says.

She takes the baby with her to her office, dialing Weller as she goes.

“Weller.”

“What’s going on?”

“Patterson was extremely lethargic,” Weller says.  He sounds tense. “She had a high fever.  Jane couldn’t wake her up.  They’re running some tests on her right now, but it looks like she’s got an infection in her shoulder wound, and she’s dehydrated.”

“Are they going to keep her?”

“I don’t know,” Weller answers. “That’ll probably depend on what they find out after the tests.”

“That makes sense.”

“Do you want me to come back to the office?”

“No, I think we’ve got things handled here.  I think Jane would probably appreciate having someone with her.”

“Yeah, especially since they won’t let her back with Patterson,” Weller says with a rueful chuckle.

He looks over at Jane, who’s holding an old copy of _People_ magazine so tightly that her knuckles are white. “I’m going to let you go,” he tells Mayfair.

“Check in soon and let me know how Patterson is,” Mayfair says.

“I will.”

Before Weller can say anything to Jane, a doctor approaches them. “Are you the next of kin for Ms. Patterson?”

“I am,” Jane says, and she stands up.

“You’re Jane, I’m guessing,” the doctor says. “She’s asking for you.”

“Can I… go back and be with her?”

“She’s being rather persistent.  I think there might be consequences if I came back without you.”

Jane follows the doctor back to an exam room, and as he’s about to open the door, something hits the inside of it with a loud clang.  The doctor jumps back, surprised.  Jane waits a few beats, then opens the door.

Patterson whirls around.  She’s clad in a hospital gown that’s falling off her shoulders, a look of distress on her face, and there’s a plastic pan in her hand, held as though she’s going to throw it.  There’s a nurse to the side of the room, shielding what looks like IV insertion equipment with her body; her eyes are on Patterson, widened with the slightest bit of alarm.

“Hey,” Jane says calmly. “It’s okay, Patterson.”

“They… they want to stick…” Patterson blinks.  Her lips are dry and her eyes look reddish.  She seems confused.

“They want to help you,” Jane says.  She walks closer to Patterson, until she’s near enough to take the plastic pan from Patterson’s grip. “They need to give you medicine to help you.”

“I don’t want to be here.”

“I know,” Jane says. “I know.”

She gets a few steps closer to Patterson, who’s wobbling on her feet now, teeth chattering, and gently puts her arms around Patterson. “Can we sit down?”

Patterson nods. “‘M so… _tired.”_

“I know,” Jane repeats.

Patterson’s knees give out and Jane catches her, lifting her onto the gurney. “Okay.  Okay, just… here, sit down.”

She stands in front of Patterson, and Patterson rests her head on Jane’s shoulder.

“Can they put in the IV now?” Jane asks.

“Yeah,” Patterson says, the one word slurred.

“Okay.”

“Will you… stay with me?”

“Of course I will.” Jane looks over at the nurse and nods.

The nurse quickly puts in the IV into the back of Patterson’s hand, and the doctor comes in a few minutes later to look at Patterson’s wound.  By that time Jane has Patterson leaning back against her as she rests against the head of the bed.  Patterson’s eyes are glassy, at least when she can keep them open, and she’s muttering things as she picks at the hospital gown.

“It’s infected,” the doctor pronounces after a few minutes. “We’ll need to open it back up and drain it.”

“Is that going to be painful?” Jane asks.

“We’ll give her something nice for it,” the doctor says. “She shouldn’t feel anything.”

He excuses himself to get his supplies, and Jane leans Patterson back once more, kissing her on the temple. “It’s going to be okay.”

“Mo?” Patterson asks, turning into the kiss.

“She’s with Zapata,” Jane tells her. “She’s okay.”

“She’s so _good,”_ Patterson says.

Jane isn’t sure whether she’s talking about Moira or Zapata, so she settles for saying, “She sure is.”

Whatever painkillers they give Patterson take effect almost immediately, and Jane just holds her sleeping form while the doctor opens up the incision and flushes the wound, then inserts a drainage tube that he sutures into place.

“We’ll give her the first round of antibiotics here,” the doctor tells Jane. “I’d like to keep her for observation overnight, and if things go well, we can take the drainage tube out in the morning.”

“She’s not going to like that,” Jane says. “She’s not really big on doctors.  It’s nothing personal.”

“It never is,” the doctor says with a smile. “I’ll let her rest while we get things prepared for her to be transferred upstairs.”

He leaves.  Jane shifts Patterson slightly to take out her phone and text Weller.

_They’re going to keep her overnight._

_Do you need anything from me?_

_We’ll need some stuff from home._

_Give me a list.  I’ll get it._

_And somebody to take care of Mo._

_You know that goes without saying, right?_

Jane smiles.

Against her, Patterson groans. “Jane,” she says, and grips down into Jane’s pant legs.

“It’s all right,” Jane says. “I’ve got you.”

 

* * *

 

“We’ve looked at this every single way I can think of,” Zapata says, speaking a bit louder to be heard over Mo’s cries.  She bounces the baby against her as she walks back and forth across Patterson’s lab, keeping her eyes on the numbers and letters of Erik Tidemore’s bulletin board. “This is what your mom does, right?  She talks the cases with you, and somehow that helps?”

Mo just sobs.

“I know, I’m not your mom,” Zapata says. “I’m sorry.  Reade’s making you a bottle, though, and I bet that’ll help.  Until then, can you help me figure out this clue?”

She pats Mo’s back, taking another look at the letters and numbers on the top-most Post-It on the board. “Z-one-B-four-eight-six-T-L-zero.  Let’s see… substitution ciphers… combination locks… I can’t think of anything that combines letters and numbers like this.”

“VIN numbers,” Reade offers, coming into the lab with a bottle in his hand. “License plates.”

Zapata settles Mo into the crook of her elbow and reaches for the bottle.  Mo accepts it, sucking greedily. “It’s too long to be a license plate number.”

“Unless it’s a foreign car.”

“Why would Erik Tidemore have a foreign car’s license plate number?”

“We don’t really know that much about him,” Zapata answers. “He could be a collector.”

“He _is_ a collector, but I don’t think cars interested him that much,” Reade says.  He pulls up a car registration database and inputs the letter-number combination.  It comes up empty.

“We’re just coming up short,” Zapata says with a sigh.

“There’s still his work friends,” Reade says. “We can check into them.”

“I feel like this guy is more questions than answers.”

Mo drinks down her bottle and falls asleep.  Zapata puts her in the miniature crib in Mayfair’s office and covers her gently with a blanket.

Mayfair arrives a moment later, Weller behind her. “Patterson’s staying overnight in the hospital,” he tells them. “Jane’s staying with her for right now.  Where are we on the case?”

“Honestly, no further than we were this morning,” Reade says. “We’re going to follow up with Erik Tidemore’s friends and coworkers, but after that…”

“Let’s go home early,” Mayfair suggests. “I think we’re all getting a little blocked.”

It’s an offer met with absolutely no protests, and they leave together, Weller taking Mo with him.  She sleeps, though, and he makes the journey back to Patterson’s apartment without any interruptions.

“You’re a pretty wonderful girl, Mo,” Weller murmurs. “But then again, so is your momma.”

 

* * *

 

“No!” Patterson lurches upright out of sleep, yanking herself away from Jane.  In a flash IV tubes and the drain from her wound go haywire, and she looks down at them, hands rising to pull.

“Easy, easy!” Jane says, and grabs Patterson’s hands. “You’re all right.  You need these.”

“I need to go home,” Patterson says, eyes wide, and she tries to get off the bed. “I can’t stay here!”

“You’re okay,” Jane says, squeezing Patterson’s hands. “I promise.  You need to stay here - your wound is infected and you have a very high fever.”

“No,” Patterson says, her breathing picking up. “No, I don’t want to be here!  I need to go!”

She makes it up off the bed, yanking her hands away from Jane, and starts wobbling towards the door.

Jane hurries after her, and wraps her arms around Patterson from behind, gently stopping her. “It’s okay.  You’re safe.  I promise.”

“I _need_ to go,” Patterson repeats, and tries to jerk away from Jane. “I _need_ … Mo… and…”

Her entire body is shaking, and Jane sees tears stream down her face.

“Shh,” Jane murmurs, and turns Patterson towards her, hugging her tightly. “You’re sick.  Stay here and let the doctors help you, okay?”

Patterson lets out something like a low wail, and just cries.  Jane rocks her back and forth, back and forth, and tries to murmur things soft and reassuring, which she’s not sure are helping at all.

At last she hears Patterson’s sobs stop, and Patterson whispers, “Why are you so good to me?”

“You’re one of those people who are easy to love,” Jane answers, and she gently kisses Patterson’s forehead.

“Don’t leave.”

“I told you I wouldn’t, and I meant it.”

“Okay,” Patterson says softly, and she lets Jane lead her back to the bed, lets Jane pull up the covers and settle down next to her as they do so many nights at home, and it takes a little of the edge off as she woozily closes her eyes once more.

And Jane holds her hand, and listens to her breathe, and fulfills her promise.  She doesn’t leave.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can find me on Tumblr as memorysdaughter.


End file.
